WINTER 2018 SECURE THE FUTURE

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 EDITORIAL
Editor in Chief Aaron Lazenby
aaron.lazenby@oracle.com
Managing Editor Jan Rogers
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Contributors Sasha Banks-Louie, David Baum, Bobbie
Hartman, Alan Joch, Monica Mehta, Kate Pavao,
Rob Preston, Alison Weiss, Minda Zetlin
Copy Editors Claire Breen, Karen Perkins
DESIGN
Vice President, Brand Creative Francisco G Delgadillo
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PUBLISHING
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WINTER 2018
INSIDE ORACLE
16
IT’s Bold Future
34 Supercharged cloud
applications, the
LEDGER TEST machine learning
Oracle Blockchain Cloud revolution, and
Service helps cloud-native much more show-
fintech Biz2Credit provide cased at Oracle
CONTENTS

billions of dollars in mer- OpenWorld 2017

chant cash advances. in San Francisco,
California

EDITOR’S NOTE PERSPECTIVES

5 23
Secure the Future Automatic. Secure.
Enterprises need a Integrated.
cybersecurity strat- Three ways
egy to protect their Oracle Database
valuable information 18c can improve
assets. data security
58
NEED TO KNOW Cybersecurity’s
10 New Normal
The Big Question: A new approach to
Securing Freedom. cybersecurity that
In the Future, What creates a protec-
Will Be Worth tive foundation for
Protecting? the future

3 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018 PHOTOGR APH: PAUL S. HOWELL

 FEATURES BIG IDEAS
WINTER 2018

28 10
28 51
Ahead of the Curve Protective Measures
Oracle President Nimble technology
Thomas Kurian solutions can defend
says Oracle Cloud against today’s
is at the front of ever-changing
CONTENTS

today’s cloud mar- security threats.

ket. But how does
that help customers 60
adopt tomorrow’s Evolving the
technologies? Enterprise
Award-winning
43 CIOs discuss how
People Data Central emerging tech-
Health benefits nologies require
company Anthem changes in focus,
builds analyt- strategy, culture,
XX ics portal and and infrastructure
team to improve
talent decisions.

16

4 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018 PHOTOGR APHS AND ILLUSTR ATION: K ATELYN TUCKER /OR ANGE PHOTOGR APHY, WES ROWELL,SANDR A GARCIA
WINTER 2018
Recent headlines demonstrate the need
for managers to secure tomorrow, today.
In 2016, the global econ-
EDITOR’S NOTE
omy lost more than US$450
billion to cybercrime. That’s
an increase of US$336 billion
since 2011.
Today, managers believe
that they are not ready for the
growing cybersecurity chal-
lenge—74 percent feel that
existing tools are not sufficient
for a hybrid cloud environment.
On top of that, by 2019
there will be at least 2 mil-
lion unfilled security jobs
SECURE THE worldwide.
So enterprises face a real
predicament: threats are ris-
FUTURE ing and have a real cost, but
managers generally lack the
staff and the confidence in the
investments they've made to
AARON LAZENBY, Editor in Chief, Profit mitigate new threats.
The current issue of Profit,
aaron.lazenby@oracle.com
with the theme of “Secure the
5 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018 PHOTOGR APH: BOB ADLER / THE VERBATIM AGENCY
Future,” was inspired by these
distressing numbers—along
with recent breakthrough
announcements from Oracle
and some forward-thinking
customer case studies. As
threats multiply and the secu-
rity landscape evolves, enter-
prises need a strategy to pro-
tect their valuable information
assets and plan for the disrup-
tions (and opportunities) the
future holds.
The theme starts with a
big announcement Oracle
made at Oracle OpenWorld
back in October: autono-
mous database functional-
ity in the upcoming Oracle
Database 18c. Oracle
Executive Chairman and Chief
Technology Officer Larry
Ellison announced the world’s
first “self-driving” database
 onstage at the event. This topic
WINTER 2018

is addressed in this issue by both

Juan Loaiza, senior vice president
of database systems technology
As threats multiply and the security landscape evolves,
at Oracle and Michelle Malcher, enterprises need a strategy to protect their valuable
Oracle ACE Director and secu-
rity architect at Extreme Scale
information assets and plan for the disruptions (and
EDITOR’S NOTE

Solutions The upshot: automated opportunities) the future holds.

database technology will help
close the gap created by all of
those open security jobs, automat-
ically addressing some of the most
basic security vulnerabilities.
Data security is one aspect
of protecting the enterprise
against tomorrow’s threats.
Another is taking an enterprise-
wide view of security, especially
as on-premises systems interact
increasingly with third-party sys-
tems in the cloud. (See Protective
Measures.) This means under-
standing how cloud-ready iden-
tity management solutions can
track and limit user access and
how a cloud-access security bro-
ker can monitor the nature of the
data being transferred in and out
of the enterprise. In both cases,
artificial intelligence can set a
baseline for normal user behavior,
identify exceptions, and automati-
cally apply remedies as needed.
But securing the future also
means seeing the new opportu-
nities that the volatile threat envi-
ronment presents and building
tomorrow’s business based on
the insight you can derive today.
Biz2Credit, featured on the cover
of this issue of Profit, has done
a very interesting job of this by
using blockchain technology to
help rationalize disparate bor-
rower data that lives in multiple
organizations. Blockchain helps
protect and validate that sensitive
user data and has created a new
business model for the growing
company—a testament to the role
that novelty and innovation can
play in protecting the businesses
of the future.
In our fast-moving, results-now
world, it can be hard to take the
time to protect against a crisis
that hasn’t already arrived. But
recent headlines demonstrate
the need for managers to secure
tomorrow, today. Security chal-
lenges are expanding as well-
defined network perimeters give
way to highly distributed enter-
prise ecosystems created by pub-
lic and hybrid clouds and mobile
applications. IT and security pro-
fessionals must closely manage
data as it flows to these far-flung
applications. But that’s not easy.
Modern data centers are highly
complex, and one small vulnera-
bility, such as a previously identi-
fied bug that’s yet to be fixed, can
be devastating.

6 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018

SPONSORED CONTENT
For more information, visit
www.deloitte.com/oracle
Diving Deeper into
Smarter Data
Machine intelligence and mixed reality unlock insight and agility
W
e’re surrounded by more
data than ever, but for
many organizations,
its potential still remains elusive.
Companies have a wealth of data
they have accumulated in their
enterprise resource planning (ERP)
system and other existing systems,
but gaining actionable insight from
all that data isn’t easy.
To get more from this valuable
asset, organizations are looking for
better ways to boost its visibility
and intelligence. They’re exploring
new approaches to engage with
their information, and transform
insights into action. Emerging tech-
nologies like machine intelligence
(MI) and mixed reality are pointing
the way toward a deeper relation-
ship with data.
COMBINE MI AND EXISTING
SYSTEMS FOR DATA-DRIVEN
ROI
Machine intelligence and analytics
are powerful methods for revealing
patterns, insights, and opportuni-
ties that are hidden deep within an
organization’s stored data. They
can provide visibility into what has
happened in the past, what’s hap-
pening now, and what may happen
in the future. Armed with this knowl-
edge, business leaders can develop
the right actions to help transform
business outcomes.
For example, robotic process
automation (RPA) is reshaping the
way companies think about their
digital strategies. RPA is a pow-
erful way to automate manual tasks
SPONSORED CONTENT
like reading and writing to databases and
extracting structured data from documents.
RPA can interface directly with existing tech-
nologies, including the ERPs that power so
many of today’s critical business processes.
“The goal should be evolving engagement —
building more intuitive, immersive, and empowering
experiences that bring people closer to data,
and amplify their ability to use it.”
That interface capability makes Oracle
on-premises and cloud apps suitable for
industry-leading RPA software platforms.
Recent use cases have shown that
effectively layering RPA onto a company’s
existing Oracle ERP can result in a signii-
cant return on investment (ROI). In a recent
assessment conducted at a major manufac-
turer, Deloitte found that an RPA program
could unlock US$150 million in potential
annual cost savings.
ENABLE A MORE AGILE SUPPLY CHAIN
Consider an example of how to apply MI
to critical business processes. A global
company with a complex supply chain (SC)
might be seeking improved insight into its
operational performance, and better ways to
spot and respond to potential disruptions.
Bringing together MI with Oracle Cloud
ERP can deliver real-time views of supply
chain operations, so decision-makers can
respond faster. If the organization creates
a rules-based SC bot in Oracle Cloud ERP
and uses machine learning, the bot can
mimic human actions and judgement. It can
spot possible trouble in the supply chain—
and recommend the best way to take action.
The bot could learn where to look for poten-
tial issues, helping SC executives predict
and prevent disruptions faster and more
effectively.
Interacting with the bot could be as
simple as asking it for a status report. The
bot could respond with:
• An overall performance update
• On-time delivery metrics
• Inventory details
• Exceptions and potential issues
If an exception turns up, such as a pur-
chase order that was not received, the bot
could alert the SC executive, and automati-
cally follow up with an email to a purchasing
manager asking for details.
MI gives the SC executive instant visi-
bility into the supply chain performance, and
keeps her informed of potential disruptions
and recommended solutions. Because the
SC bot can be conigured and trained to
learn from past experience, it can continue
to improve its detection capabilities, and
suggest better actions over time.
GET HANDS-ON WITH MIXED REALITY
Mixed reality technology can help organiza-
tions take user interaction with data a step
further. We’ve already seen interaction with
SPONSORED CONTENT
the digital world progress from the keyboard
and mouse to touch and talk on tablets and
wearables. Now, people are starting to con-
nect with apps and data through gestures
and gazes.
Virtual reality (VR) can simulate a physical
presence in the real world or an imagined
world, so we can interact with that world.
Augmented reality (AR) works by adding
multidimensional content on top of real
world objects or locations, turning the phys-
ical world into digital media. Mixed reality
(MR) brings them both together, along with
the internet of things (IoT). It merges real and
virtual worlds to produce new environments
and visualizations where physical and digital
objects co-exist—and interact—in real time.
It enhances the real world with visual over-
lays, spatial audio, and haptic feedback.
How can we apply MR to business pro-
cesses? One of the promises of the tech-
nology is its ability to allow a global work-
force of remote teams to work together to
tackle challenges. No matter where they are
physically located, an employee can strap
on their headset and noise-canceling head-
phones and enter a collaborative, immersive
virtual environment. It can bring users closer
to data by feeding relevant back-ofice data
and analysis from Oracle and other apps
into the user’s ield of vision.
DISCOVER BETTER, MORE INTUITIVE
PRODUCT DESIGN
Look at how an organization could employ
MR to power more effective product design.
A product engineer working on an automo-
bile component could share a design with
his team using Oracle Social Cloud and
Oracle Product Information Management
(PIM). The team submits their ideas into the
system, and several designs move forward
into the prototype phase.
Instead of building traditional, physical
prototypes, the engineer generates holo-
graphic images of the designs based on the
attributes stored in Oracle PIM. Using an AR
device, he overlays the hologram onto a real
car for all the users to see. He can check
the parameters of every design option with
voice commands or gestures, examining the
overall look and feel, and changing colors in
seconds. He then asks the smart assistant
to check an Oracle Costing database to get
an estimate for building each design option.
Finally, using an Oracle Procurement app,
he can conirm that components are avail-
able. MR makes the entire prototyping pro-
cess faster, more collaborative, and more
cost-effective.
EMPOWER PEOPLE AND BUSINESSES
THROUGH DATA
New technologies like MI, MR, and the IoT
are advancing fast. Each of these develop-
ments can power new solutions and apps
that we could not have imagined just a few
years ago. To make the most of these new
technologies, companies need to take a
holistic view about how they will connect
with their data and business processes.
The goal should be evolving engage-
ment—building more intuitive, immersive,
and empowering experiences that bring
people closer to data, and amplify their
ability to use it. By integrating today’s most
advanced technologies with the applications
that power their key operations, businesses
can take a dramatic step forward in their
journey toward digital transformation.
If you’d like to learn more about the latest
developments that are transforming the
enterprise, check out the Oracle Special
Edition report, “Tech Trends 2017: The
kinetic enterprise,” published by Deloitte
University Press, and the Tech Trends 2017
web series.
SECURE THE FUTURE

THE BIG QUESTION:

SECURING
FREEDOM:
IN THE FUTURE,
WHAT WILL
BE WORTH
PROTECTING?
NEED TO KNOW

Today, there are far more

invasive surveillance
technologies changing
how police do their jobs,
where they go, who they
target, and in many ways
how they monitor society.
— ANDREW FERGUSON

10 ILLUSTR ATION: WES ROWELL

 Business Class
SECURE THE FUTURE

SCAN
NATURALLY
So long, boarding pass. Some
NEED TO KNOW

customers in Delta Airlines’ loyalty

program can use their fingerprints
to board, while JetBlue is rolling
out facial recognition technology.
64% And at Dubai International Airport,
visitors will soon walk through a
OF AIR virtual aquarium where 80 facial
recognition and iris scanning cam-
TRAVELERS eras will scrutinize their faces as
WOULD USE they gaze at fish swimming by.
BIOMETRIC Welcome to the future, says Philip
DATA AS Baum, editor in chief of Aviation
Security International magazine.
THEIR
“Going forward, we will have tech-
PREFERRED nology that resembles scenes
TRAVELING from the movie Total Recall, where
TOKEN people are totally oblivious to the
fact that they are being screened
because the technology is actu-
ally built into the airport itself,” he
says. More at dubaiairports.ae.
—Bobbie Hartman

11 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018 ILLUSTR ATION: MMDI/GET T Y IMAGES

 Idea Lab
SECURE THE FUTURE

Lab Rat

PROTECTING GORILLAS SECURITY ON

IN THE CLOUD THE BRAIN
“We want to have
Truthful Brain
data in real time Corporation might
that we can use to sound straight out of
NEED TO KNOW

see if there’s a con- sci-fi, but it’s the name of a

servation threat,”
says Tara Stoinski,
17% real company using functional
magnetic resonance imaging to
president, CEO, capture brain activity. And CEO
and chief scientific APPROXIMATE Joel Huizenga says scanscan
officer for the orga- NUMBER OF prove if someone is
nization. “Having USERS WHO
the data up in the telling the truth. In fact,
cloud really helps.”
SECURE THEIR Huizenga hopes to use a scan as
The app, which ACCOUNTS evidence in a murder case in early
is free on iTunes, WITH THE 2018. This raises questions—not
only about the validity of the
can be modified PASSWORD
for researching any technique—but also about skull
“123456.” sanctity. Shouldn’t thoughts be
There are fewer Fossey Gorilla animal. More at
than 900 moun- Fund International gorillafund.org. secure? For Huizenga, the accused
tain gorillas left developed an —Margaret must consent. “It definitely should
on Earth. How app enabling field Lindquist be illegal to go inside someone’s
can scientists researchers to brain, period, unless they want
use technology enter data directly that,” he says.
to protect them? into tablets con- More at truthfulbrain.com.
With support from nected to Oracle —Monica Mehta
Oracle, the Dian Database Cloud.

12 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018 PHOTOGR APH: COURTESY OF THE DIAN FOSSEY GORILL A FUND
 Need to Know
SECURE THE FUTURE

SECURITY CITY
There’s no doubt that technology is changing policing, says READY TO ROLL ON THE FLY
Andrew Ferguson, a law professor at the University of the Singapore’s OTSAW Digital Russia’s Hoversurf signed
District Columbia and author of The Rise of Big Data Policing. has created O-R3, a tiny an agreement to sell
Just take a look at Chicago, he says, where police are using an self-driving, self-charging Dubai police Scorpion 3
NEED TO KNOW

algorithm to create a list of likely victims and perpetrators of police car outfitted with
violence so they can intervene before crime happens. thermal imaging, facial and
But perhaps no city is quicker to embrace high-tech security license plate recognition,
solutions than futuristic Dubai, which plans for nearly a quarter and a drone in the trunk to
of its police force to consist of robots by 2030—and show- deploy as needed. Look
cased two very shiny solutions at the GITEX Technology show for the cars to hit Dubai’s
this October. Here’s what to look for next time you’re in the streets before the end of
business hub. the year. More at
otsaw.com/o-r3-robot.
hoverbikes, which offi-
cers can use to respond
to emergencies in a flash.
Scorpions can hover at
speeds up to 43 miles
per hour—and you don’t
have to be a police officer
to have one. You can buy
your own for just under
US$60,000. More at
hoversurf.com/scorpion-3.
—Kate Pavao

13 PHOTOGR APH: ENYO MANZ ANO PHOTOGR APHY/GET T Y IMAGES

 On Topic
SECURE THE FUTURE
WHO’S
WATCHING?
Police are increasingly turning to
technology to fight crime.
NEED TO KNOW
Is there enough oversight?
What if police knew that a bank robbery hap-
pened on the corner of Fourth and Elm, and
could use a small plane equipped with tons of
tiny cameras that they could review the footage
from to see the car pull up with masked robbers
inside? A private company actually launched this
solution with the Baltimore police in 2016, but
that caused a scandal when it was revealed city
officials didn’t know about the initiative.
And that’s exactly the problem, says Andrew
Ferguson, author of The Rise of Big Data Policing:
we aren’t scrutinizing these solutions carefully.
“Today, there are far more invasive surveillance
technologies changing how police do their jobs,
where they go, who they target, and in many
ways how they monitor society,” he told Profit.
“These changes offer some efficiencies and
innovations that are good, and it also offers
some risks.” Here’s what he says we should be
thinking about.
14 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018
ON PREDICTIVE ANALYTICS:
This is actually quite useful for
identifying why some particular
place might have an environ-
mental risk that could encourage
crime or why some person might
be taking the wrong path. But
the remedy doesn’t have to be
policing; it could be social services
or it could be adding lighting to a
dark area to discourage crime.
ON BAD DATA:
There’s an inherent difficulty
that comes from police officers
recording tons of information
every day. Errors can be part of
any large-scale data system. Also,
database incentives could change
how particular crimes are coded.
If you’ve invested in technologies
that are supposed to bring crime
down, you want to see results.
ON STARTUPS:
Many of these innovations are
being driven by private compa-
nies—many startups, many inno-
vators. It’s not that law enforce-
ment is coming to the companies
and saying, “Hey, we would like
the following. Can you build this
to our specifications?”
ON THE BIG QUESTION:
The companies are not thinking
about what happens when their
technology intersects with the
existing criminal justice system,
a system that’s built and defined
by small data or no data. How
is this technology going to be
able to be used and played out
and explained? My hope is that
these companies will start inviting
data scientists, ethicists, and law-
yers in ahead of time to really
think through technologies before
they get implemented.
—Kate Pavao
SECURE THE FUTURE

Research
40
PERCENTAGE OF
AMERICANS WHO WORRY
SECURITY BY 2030
YEAR BY WHEN “THE
THAT THEY OR A FAMILY
MEMBER WILL BE A VICTIM THE NUMBERS TYPICAL NORTH
OF A MASS SHOOTING AMERICAN CITY
NEED TO KNOW

WILL RELY HEAVILY”

ON AI, SUCH AS
95 78
PERCENTAGE OF CIOS
WHO SAID THEY EXPECT
39 PERCENTAGE OF
AMERICANS WHO CALLED
SURVEILLANCE
CAMERAS, DRONES,
THAT CYBERSECURITY
PERCENTAGE TECH COMPANIES’ ABILITY
AND EVEN
THREATS WILL INCREASE OF CONSUMERS TO COLLECT SO MUCH PREDICTIVE
AND AFFECT THEIR WHO HAVE DATA ABOUT THEM A POLICING
ORGANIZATIONS UNFAVORABLE “BAD THING”
FEELINGS
46 TOWARD FACIAL
17 6
PERCENTAGE OF AMERICANS RECOGNITION
PERCENTAGE OF POLICE NUMBER IN US$ TRILLIONS
WHO THINK GOVERNMENT SOFTWARE ON FORCE ROBOTS THE THAT CYBERCRIME WILL
INVESTIGATORS SHOULD THEIR DEVICES, GOVERNMENT PLANS COST THE WORLD EACH
HAVE ACCESS TO ENCRYPTED
COMMUNICATIONS
WHILE 34 PERCENT TO DEPLOY YEAR BY 2021, DOUBLE
FELT FAVORABLE WHAT IT WAS IN 2015

15 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018

 IT’s
NEXT BIG THINGS

Bold Future
Supercharged cloud applications,
the machine learning revolution,
and much more showcased at
INSIDE ORACLE

Oracle OpenWorld 2017 in

San Francisco.

16 PHOTOGR APH: CHARLOT TE FIORITO/COMPASSPHOTOGR APHERS.COM

NEXT BIG THINGS

This is a big deal,

INSIDE ORACLE

by the way.
No one else does
this. This is the
most important thing
we’ve done in a
long, long time.
—ORACLE EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN AND
CTO LARRY ELLISON

From October 1 through
October 5, Oracle
OpenWorld 2017 brought
together top technologists
and IT leaders for immer-
sive, interactive demonstra-
tions and deep dives into
cutting-edge technologies
and innovative solutions at
both Oracle and customer
companies. The conference
hosted 60,000 attendees
from 175 countries; offered
2,300 sessions; provided a
speaking platform for more
than 3,000 customers and
partners; and featured more
than 500 Oracle technol-
Oracle Executive Chairman and
CTO Larry Ellison announced
Oracle Database 18c in the first
of two keynotes he delivered at
the conference.

17 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018 PHOTOGR APH: CHARLOT TE FIORITO/COMPASSPHOTOGR APHERS.COM

NEXT BIG THINGS
INSIDE ORACLE
ogy sessions, demos, and
case studies.
Oracle Executive Chairman
and CTO Larry Ellison’s
opening keynote is always a
18 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018
highlight of the conference,
and in this year’s address
Ellison told a rapt audience
that he has seen the future
of IT: autonomous, adaptive,
self-managing systems that
are more secure than ever.
That future has arrived,
Ellison revealed, in the form
of Oracle Database 18c,
Attendees gathered on
Howard Street to network,
lunch, and relax.
which he described as the
world’s first 100 percent
“self-driving” autonomous
database. This new release is
an even more reliable, lower-
cost next generation of the
company’s flagship database,
Ellison said.
Oracle Database 18c’s
self-patching and self-tuning
capabilities, powered by
machine learning—a “tech-
nology that’s every bit as rev-
olutionary as the internet,”
Ellison said—will minimize
human intervention and vir-
tually eliminate human error,
helping reduce security risks
while freeing database man-
agers to focus on higher-
level work.
“This is a big deal, by
the way. No one else does
this,” Ellison said, adding,
“This is the most important
thing we’ve done in a long,
long time.”
PHOTOGR APH: TUE NAM TON
 Security concerns, and
NEXT BIG THINGS
investments in ways to
address those concerns, were
also top of mind during Oracle
CEO Mark Hurd’s keynote.
Hurd cited security as one of
the reasons more companies
are shifting more of their IT
workloads to cloud service
INSIDE ORACLE
providers such as Oracle.
Business managers are
saying, “I want to move this
risk. I want to move this com-
plexity. I want to move this
cost,” Hurd recounted. “I
want to move it from here to
there—i.e., from you to me.”
Hurd noted that corpo-
rate IT budgets continue to
be flat in many companies.
With more than 80 percent
of those budgets typically
allocated to things like patch-
ing, upgrading systems, and
maintenance, that leaves little
funding for investing in the
kinds of modern applications
and customer touchpoints
that consumers and business
customers alike expect.
Such budget constraints,
along with the current eco-
19 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018
nomic climate and rapid pace
of disruption across indus-
tries, are driving companies
to the cloud in an effort to
quickly free up resources for
investment in customer-facing
innovation. “The movement
to cloud is an inevitable
destination,” Hurd contin-
ued. “This is how comput-
ing will evolve over the next
several years.”
THE PATH AHEAD
The security theme was
echoed once again when
Amit Zavery, senior vice
president of product devel-
opment for Oracle Cloud
Platform, laid out the Oracle
Cloud Platform roadmap
in an Oracle OpenWorld
general session.
In particular, Zavery
offered the example of
the new Oracle Blockchain
Cloud Service. Blockchain is
a cloud-based distributed
ledger that can be used in
business-to-business partner
ecosystems for more-secure
transactions and data shar-
Oracle Headlines from
ORACLE OPENWORLD
The New Oracle
Blockchain
Cloud Service Offers
Enterprise-Grade
Blockchain Capabilities
Oracle Announces
Oracle Security
Monitoring and
ing, and Oracle Blockchain
Cloud Service is built on
Hyperledger Fabric, the open
source effort led by the Linux
Foundation to spur cross-
industry blockchain standards.
While Zavery empha-
sized the importance of
Analytics Cloud Service to
Provide the Next Generation
of Cybersecurity
Oracle
Introduces
Oracle AI Platform Cloud
Service to Enable Machine
Learning in the Cloud
Oracle Offers
Oracle Adaptive
Intelligent Apps
Built into Existing Oracle
Cloud Applications to
Provide Powerful AI-Based
Modern Business
Applications
keeping Oracle’s cloud
platform open, he noted
that open doesn’t mean
undifferentiated. He pointed
out that Oracle enhances the
best open source innova-
tions with the tools for man-
agement, security, develop-
NEXT BIG THINGS
INSIDE ORACLE
ment, and high-performance
infrastructure that compa-
nies need to put them to
practical use.
In addition, Oracle makes
sure companies are ready
for the big idea that’s sure
20 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018
to come next. Said Zavery,
“We have a technically
unified and proven PaaS
[platform as a service] offer-
ing, completely based on
open standards, delivering
continuous innovation.”
Showcasing that innovation
through demos was the core
of Oracle President of Product
Development Thomas Kurian’s
keynote, which mapped out
the technology path ahead
for Oracle. That path includes
PHOTOGR APH: CHARLOT TE FIORITO/COMPASSPHOTOGR APHERS.COM
Oracle CEO Mark Hurd during
his keynote address, which
touched on how current market
conditions are driving companies
to the cloud
artificial intelligence, machine
learning, chatbots, and new
human interfaces, Kurian said,
adding that these emerging
technologies now fit into the
vision Oracle has had since
it started building its cloud
offerings more than a decade
ago: Let anyone, anywhere in
the world, access the power
of all of Oracle’s technolo-
gies using only a browser or
a phone.
“We’re going to show you
not just the new innovations
we have in Oracle Cloud, but
also a glimpse into the future
of Oracle, of how we’re infus-
ing the new technologies of
autonomous computing, arti-
ficial intelligence, IoT [Internet
of Things], blockchain, and
new forms of human inter-
face into our cloud offering,”
Kurian said.
For more in-depth cover-
 age of the topics he explored,
NEXT BIG THINGS
see our interview with Kurian
in this issue.
Finally, in his second
keynote of the conference,
Larry Ellison introduced the
industry’s first cloud-native,
integrated security and sys-
tems management suite:
INSIDE ORACLE
the Oracle Identity Security
Operations Center port-
folio of services coupled with
Oracle Management Cloud.
Like Oracle Database
18c, these integrated cloud
services rely on machine
learning—a particular appli-
cation of machine learning
designed to help com-
panies forecast, quickly
detect, and ward off security
attacks as well as system
performance issues.
“The real problem is loss
of information,” Ellison said.
“If your system is down and
you can’t sell tickets or sell
flashlights or whatever you’re
doing on your online system,
that’s not good—you’d like
the system to be available all
the time. But you don’t get
21 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018
JUAN LOAIZA
Senior Vice President,
Database Systems
Technology, Oracle
Lately, enterprise cyber-
attacks are making the
news much too fre-
quently, putting the spot-
light on database secu-
rity. Here Juan Loaiza,
senior vice president
of database systems
technology at Oracle,
discusses why security
threats are escalating
and how Oracle’s self-
securing autonomous
Oracle Database 18c is a
revolutionary solution.
PROFIT: Why are the stakes
so high for enterprise secu-
rity breaches?
LOAIZA: Traditionally, com-
panies have been in charge
of their own database secu-
rity, but that’s not working
anymore because today
breaches are very sophis-
ticated—involving people
or criminal organizations
with extreme levels of
resources. Enterprises need
to partner up with another
company such as Oracle
that has the resources, the
experience, and thousands
of engineers that can be
on their side to protect
against cyberattacks.
PROFIT: Why is it so critical
for Oracle Database 18c to
be safer and more available
compared to manual data-
base management?
LOAIZA: Oracle has been
working on database tech-
nology for decades. The
hard part is not the auto-
mation. It’s making the
technology safer. It has to
be safer and more reliable
than what you can do your-
self—otherwise you’re not
going to use it to support
mission-critical workloads.
PROFIT: How does Oracle
Database 18c automate
safety and reliability?
LOAIZA: To protect against
internal and external attacks
and also against failure,
Oracle Database 18c incor-
porates a lot of technol-
ogy that we’ve built over
the years, such as Oracle
Database Vault. The data-
base offers a system avail-
ability rate of 99.995 percent.
Oracle understands that as
soon as a security issue is
identified, it needs to be
addressed, so the deploy-
ment of security updates
has been completely auto-
mated and doesn’t require
going offline.
PHOTOGR APH: MARGOT HARTFORD
NEXT BIG THINGS

If you lose data, that’s a big problem. And that’s fundamentally what . . .
our system is designed to protect against.
—ORACLE EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN AND CTO LARRY ELLISON
INSIDE ORACLE

called in front of Congress NEXT STEPS place October 28 through

(Left) Oracle's Cloud Development
Tools and Product Management
Team at a Collective Learning
Session (Right) Students from
Design Tech High School (d.tech)
for that. If you lose data,
that’s a big problem. And
that’s fundamentally what
. . . our system is designed to
protect against.”
It’s not too soon to sign up
to be notified when registra-
tion is open for both confer-
ences, Oracle OpenWorld
and JavaOne, which take
November 1, 2018,
in San Francisco.
Alison Weiss is a frequent
contributor to Profit.

22 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018 PHOTOGR APHS: SANDR A GARCIA

SECURE THE FUTURE
In the enterprise, everyone from
CEOs to DBAs is asking questions
about how to prevent data theft.
With data theft being the
biggest cybersecurity threat
the world over, there are
PERSPECTIVE
growing concerns about safe-
guarding the valuable infor-
mation stored in databases.
According to a recent Verizon
report on data breaches,
more than 1,900 such security
AUTOMATIC breaches were reported in
2017 alone. The news regularly
highlights new cyberattacks as
SECURE they occur, and security teams
are working around the clock
maintaining secure configu-
INTEGRATED rations and managing access
privileges in order to avoid
becoming the next headline.
In the enterprise, everyone
MICHELLE MALCHER, Oracle ACE Director and Security from CEOs to DBAs is asking
Architect at Extreme Scale Solutions
questions about how to pre-
vent data theft. Oracle’s new
23 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018
autonomous database, Oracle
Database 18c, addresses these
concerns by using automa-
tion, the enhanced security of
Oracle Cloud, and integration
with additional security appli-
cations to protect valuable
company and customer data.
Here are three ways Oracle
Database 18c can improve
data security.
1. Automatic application
of security patches. DBAs
and database managers
understand how much work
is needed to apply security
patches to databases in a
very large environment. They
must make significant budget
requests, often on a quarterly
basis, for resources to perform
the work. With automated
PHOTOGR APH: PAUL S. HOWELL
 patching, large environments
SECURE THE FUTURE

can be patched in a consistent

and efficient way as soon as
vulnerabilities are recognized
Instead of worrying about how to apply, test, and configure
and fixed. Because human the databases for security patching, database teams are
intervention is not needed to
apply patches, manual mis-
able to focus on how to thwart future cyberthreats.
takes are limited. Automated
patching also means that
DBAs don’t need to grant
PERSPECTIVE

additional privileges to others
to perform the required tasks,
giving fewer people access to
sensitive data.
2. The security of Oracle
Cloud. The enhanced
security features of Oracle
Cloud are built into Oracle
Database 18c. For example,
data on the server and in
backups is encrypted, and
DBAs are not able to make
changes to configurations
to allow more access to the
data. Using encryption and
access controls reduces the
risk of unauthorized data-
base access. There is also a
natural separation of duties
in the cloud environment
that limits what an attack can
do—access to the server
and the database are sepa-
rate. The standardization of
the cloud environment offers
consistent ways to monitor
and audit the environment,
because every database has
the same security in place and
differences will stand out. Risk
is reduced by utilizing data
protection features in Oracle
Database 18c to monitor
abnormal behavior or inap-
propriate database access.
3. Integration with addi-
tional security features.
Oracle Database 18c can
utilize other security fea-
tures that are available in
Oracle Cloud, such as Oracle
Security Monitoring and
Analytics Cloud Service.
Used with Oracle Database
18c, this service’s applied
machine learning capabilities
can quickly detect risks and
possible attacks from both
internal and external sources.
The database can utilize the
details discovered by security
monitoring to adapt a secu-
rity posture by implementing
changes in configurations.
Because Oracle Database
18c is handling the resource-
intensive patching with auto-
mated processes, DBAs are
available to review the secu-
rity intelligence and use ana-
lytics to continue to secure
the databases. From a data-
base management perspec-
tive, this service provides a
very powerful tool to find
vulnerabilities and allow for
continuous improvements
that are complementary with
the automated processes.
Oracle Database 18c pro-
vides mitigation for the risks
of delayed security patching
and the errors that stem from
manual processes. Attacks
are going to come through
the weakest point—such
as known vulnerabilities—
and shorter patching cycles
reduce these opportunities.
Instead of worrying about
how to apply, test, and con-
figure the databases for secu-
rity patching, database teams
are able to focus on how to
thwart future cyberthreats.
ACTION ITEM
■ Oracle Autonomous Database

24 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018

SPONSORED CONTENT
For more information, visit
www.fortinet.com
Multidirectional Security
in a Multicloud World
Gain end-to-end visibility and control
across diverse environments.
By John Maddison, Sr. VP of Products and Solutions, Fortinet, Inc.
John Maddison, Sr. VP of Products
and Solutions, Fortinet, Inc.
aintaining visibility into collaboration and on-demand infra- and dynamic as the cloud itself.
M what’s happening deep
within the cloud isn’t easy,
and it’s becoming more important
structure for data centers and com-
puting needs.
To meet growing needs for
Q. As more enterprises migrate
critical applications and work-
than ever to protect critical data on-demand network and com- loads from their on-premises
and defend a growing poten- pute resources, organizations are data centers and private clouds
tial attack surface. According to extending their infrastructures out to the public cloud for its agility
Fortinet’s Global Threat Landscape to the public cloud. According and scale beneits, how have
Report, enterprises use a median to IDC, 75 percent are currently security requirements evolved?
of 62 different cloud applications implementing or considering the A. The days of simply securing the
or services in their networks, with implementation of public cloud network perimeter are long gone.
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) resources, and they predict that 50 Today, resources can be consumed
reaching an all-time high. That’s percent of enterprise workloads will by different cloud-based solutions
nearly a third of all applications and migrate to the public cloud by 20181. and applications, and data is often
services used, spanning everything From a security perspective, cloud shared and migrated between these
from data storage and ile sharing to security solutions must be as elastic clouds. As organizations move to
1
“Securing Dynamic Cloud Environments: Developing Your Solution Checklist in a Changing Paradigm,” Fortinet, 2017
SPONSORED CONTENT
hybrid cloud environments, they’re actually
creating multidimensional cloud ecosys-
tems. That creates new challenges when it
comes to securing all these environments
and the data traveling through them.
One of the top requirements for securing
a hybrid cloud is delivering single pane-of-
glass management across all the disparate
cloud environments. Organizations need to
maintain deep visibility, centralized policy
orchestration, integrated event correlation,
and consistent controls and response. That
requires a high level of integration. You need
“Fortinet and Oracle continue to expand their relation-
ship to deliver virtualized security solutions across
Oracle public and hybrid cloud environments.”
—John Maddison, Sr. VP of Products and Solutions, Fortinet, Inc.
tools that are either natively designed to
operate together across different environ-
ments, or based on open standards and
APIs, so you can build a central security
operations solution.
Securing the connections themselves
is also key. Hybrid solutions must support
robust VPN functions for secure, temporary
access to resources when it’s needed—
while protecting the rest of the network. In
addition, migrating data, accessing large
data sets, or using third-party, cloud-based
analytics services requires secure connec-
tions to external networks.
When it comes to multicloud environ-
ments, security teams need to be sure that
their solution is scalable and elastic, so it
can keep pace with environments that are
changing and growing fast. And they need
to be able to easily and dynamically sepa-
rate and segment systems, workloads, and
applications, based on unique risk proiles.
Q. How does Fortinet help organiza-
tions maintain consistent security vis-
ibility and control across multicloud
networks, spanning private and public
clouds to Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)
applications?
A. The deluge of isolated, specialized secu-
rity tools being deployed has created a blind
spot in the overall security strategy of many
organizations. A critical lapse in visibility,
control, or coordination in any part of the
distributed network, especially in the cloud,
can spell disaster for a digital business.
To protect today’s distributed business,
organizations need to adopt an integrated
security strategy that can collect, share, and
correlate threat information; distribute miti-
gation instructions across all attack vectors;
extend visibility and control across the net-
worked ecosystem; and enable a synchro-
nized attack response. One effective way
to do this is to design a security fabric, or
architectural approach, that enables you to
tie your deployed security tools into a single,
holistic solution. The Fortinet Security Fabric
employs this approach to provide broad,
powerful, automated security across phys-
ical, virtual, and cloud environments.
Q. Are cloud providers and managed
security service providers (MSSPs)
facing the same concerns when it comes
to security as enterprise organiza-
tions? How does Fortinet address these
concerns?
A. An especially important part of the busi-
ness model for cloud providers and MSSPs
is the need to accurately bill customers for
the consumption of cloud resources. This
can be tricky for security services because
many cloud-based security tools are simply
SPONSORED CONTENT
virtual versions of their enterprise-based
appliances. These tools don’t meter and
track security consumption.
Fortinet’s VM On-Demand security
platform provides turnkey VM licensing and
provisioning for cloud providers and MSSPs,
as well as enterprises with large private
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consumption-based, pay-as-you-grow
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compatibility for MSSPs. When it’s paired
with FortiHypervisor, VM On-Demand
offers cloud providers and enterprises the
widest choice of physical, virtual, and hybrid
customer-premises equipment (CPE) form
factors to support managed security and
software-deined wide area networking
(SD-WAN) services.
Q. Many enterprises are embracing
Oracle Cloud as their public cloud solu-
tion. How does the Fortinet Security
Fabric improve security and compliance
for Oracle Cloud customers?
A. We want businesses to be able to expe-
rience the same level of cybersecurity and
threat intelligence in cloud environments as
they do on their physical networks. That’s
why we’ve extended the core capabilities
of Fortinet Security Fabric to the cloud. For
example, we have enhanced our virtualized
FortiGate to deliver cloud-scale perfor-
mance for private and public clouds. Its VMs
now deliver up to three times faster per-core
throughput than before.
We’re also improving public cloud secu-
rity automation with on-demand and auto-
scale capabilities. Fortinet Security Fabric
virtual solutions deliver complete content
and network protection, and are avail-
able on demand or BYOL (Bring Your Own
Licenses), taking advantage of elastic work-
loads and automated security that scales.
Additionally, we’re partnering with Oracle
Security to bridge the gaps between net-
work, on premises and cloud.
Fortinet has also introduced a new API-
based FortiCASB service, which lets IT
teams maintain security visibility for both
on- and off-network user access to some
of the most widely used SaaS applications,
including Microsoft® Ofice 365™.
Q. What are some of the ways Oracle
and Fortinet are working together to help
organizations protect multidimensional
cloud environments?
A. Fortinet and Oracle continue to
expand their relationship to deliver virtual-
ized security solutions across Oracle public
and hybrid cloud environments. Available
now as a BYOL offering in the Oracle
Cloud Marketplace, FortiGate VMs give
Oracle Cloud customers a combination of
advanced threat intelligence from FortiGuard
Labs, along with the industry-leading secu-
rity operating system, FortiOS. Together,
these solutions enable complete security
feature control, workload visibility, and man-
agement for physical, virtual, and cloud
environments.
Fortinet is an early adopter of Oracle
Cloud Infrastructure and Oracle Identity
Security Operations Center (SOC), featuring
its FortiGate VM. This close integration lets
users securely move business-critical work-
loads from on-premises or private-to-public
cloud deployments, and increase visibility
by integrating identity within the context of
threat-based events. This added visibility
from Oracle’s Machine Learning and UEBA
provides actionable intelligence across threat
vectors. As Oracle Cloud scales through
multiple Availability Domains (ADs), FortiGate
will complement the cloud services with
highly available, multi-layered security to
support customers’ most critical workloads
across environments. Together, Oracle and
Fortinet will continue to deliver the on-de-
mand, multiple layers of security that today’s
dynamic cloud networks need most.
 Oracle President Thomas Kurian
says Oracle Cloud is at the front
of today’s cloud market. But how
does that help customers adopt
tomorrow’s technologies?

AHEAD OF
THE CURVE
BY AARON LAZENBY

The emergence of enterprise cloud computing

is no longer a matter of debate—and the num-
bers bear that out. Research firm IDC found
that companies are acquiring cloud services
at more than six times the rate of IT spending,
while Deloitte predicts that IT-as-a-service will
account for more than US$500 billion in eco-
nomic activity in 2018.

28 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018 PHOTOGR APH: K ATELYN TUCKER /OR ANGE PHOTOGR APHY
 Cloud architecture must be engineered with future use cases in mind.
Otherwise, you’re going to be trapped in a cloud that is not keeping up
with the market—and that would undermine one of the core benefits of
cloud computing.

As the leader of one of the
world’s largest cloud development
organizations, Oracle President
of Product Development Thomas
Kurian has an enviable view of
the cloud economy. And whether
in private conversation or on the
public stage at events (such as
Oracle OpenWorld), Kurian makes
a strong pitch for Oracle’s position
in the marketplace.
“We’re the only cloud vendor
that provides infrastructure as a
service [IaaS], platform as a ser-
vice [PaaS], application software
as a service [SaaS], and data as
a service [DaaS]”,” says Kurian.
“We have an unmatched breadth
of functionality and integration
across our platform and applica-
tion portfolio. And we can run that
cloud stack in any data center. This
affords us some very unique capa-
bilities as we look into the future.”
In the days after Oracle
OpenWorld 2017, Kurian spoke to
Profit about some of those unique
capabilities—including the impact
of emerging technologies such as
artificial intelligence (AI) and the
Internet of Things (IoT) on enter-
prise cloud computing.
PROFIT: Oracle is 10 years into
its cloud journey. What have we
learned from customers about our
cloud portfolio?
KURIAN: Customers today under-
stand the value of cloud comput-
ing—how much money you can
save, how fast you can deploy
workloads, and how easy it is to
run and use applications without
having to manage the systems
themselves. All of that is clear at
this point.
Now, customers are making
requests for novel uses of the
technology. I’ll give you an exam-
ple. We are currently working on a
project with an oil and gas explo-
ration company. They are moving
hundreds of terabytes of data to
Oracle Cloud as the foundation
of their exploration and science
algorithms. That critical part of
their business uses Oracle Cloud
Infrastructure to run the compu-
tations, and they’re using our ana-
lytics and Oracle Big Data Cloud
Service as a platform to manage
the large data assets that they’re
loading into the cloud.

29 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018

 We’re also working with a gro-
cery retailer who wanted to con-
nect our software-as-a-service
applications to their mobile user
base. They wanted to use a bot to
make that connection. So the bot
and the user interface run on our
platform as a service connecting
up our SaaS applications.
There are hundreds of such
examples: supply chain companies
using our IoT platform as well as
customers activating the AI tech-
nology inside our applications
and then using that as part of a
platform to do trending. These
use cases largely reflect what an
IT footprint looks like within a tra-
ditional corporate enterprise. IT
needs the whole stack, but they
can’t say, “Hey, we’ve got to go to
four different clouds to do that.”
PROFIT: How does Oracle’s cloud
portfolio support customers’ need
for the flexibility to adopt new
technologies as they emerge?
KURIAN: Well, take AI and
machine learning as an exam-
ple. These are areas of enormous
importance as we go forward,
30 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018
and our strategy is threefold. First,
we’ve put very fast computers in
Oracle’s IaaS, based on a technol-
ogy called graphical processing
unit [GPU] that runs machine learn-
ing algorithms with extremely high
performance. So the computation
is lightening fast. Second, we’re
building out a PaaS so data scien-
tists and experts can build appli-
cations on top of their own algo-
rithms or off-the-shelf algorithms.
Third, we have taken a specific
set of AI algorithms and inte-
grated that into our SaaS appli-
cations. There are a number of
business processes these AI algo-
rithms could help with. For exam-
ple, an AI algorithm could tell a
marketer the best message to
send to a lead. It could tell sales do. In our view, algorithms can do
reps which of the many leads they it a lot better than just human- Oracle President
of Product
should focus on closing or what’s encoded rules.
Development
the best product to recommend. But the overall cloud archi- Thomas Kurian
It could tell a customer service tecture must be engineered believes Oracle
representative what to say in with future use cases in mind. Cloud makes the
response to a customer’s query. Otherwise, you’re going to be strongest case for
All of these are scenarios where trapped in a cloud that is not what enterprise
IT will look like in
human beings write very sophis- keeping up with the market—and
the future.
ticated, complicated rules to try that would undermine one of the
and drive what a person should core benefits of cloud computing.
PHOTOGR APH: CHARLOT TE FIORITO/COMPASSPHOTOGR APHERS.COM
 PROFIT: How is Oracle uniquely
qualified to help companies intro-
duce emerging technologies such
as AI and machine learning into
their business processes?
KURIAN: We understand the appli-
cation’s function domain in great
detail, so we can tailor unique
algorithms for specific domains.
For example, traceability is import-
ant with an AI algorithm that’s
assisting a human with workflow
tasks—you must have clarity on
why the algorithm recommended
or rejected something. This is just
a fact we know because of our
work with our customers.
It’s also very important to opti-
mize algorithms for the domain, so
that you avoid statistical skew and
selection bias. For example, algo-
rithms on ecommerce recommen-
dations are relatively simple to do
with a large number of shoppers
and an assortment of products.
But what if you have a really small
number of customers and a small
assortment of products? You have
to be careful to avoid statistical
skew in the recommendation that
the software is making.
31 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018
It gets even more complicated
when you introduce a new prod-
uct, because the state of the art
in algorithms is looking at what
an individual and people like that
individual are buying, and then
making a recommendation based
on that information. But nobody
has bought the new product yet,
so how do you introduce novelty
into the algorithm? Our experi-
ence in enterprise workloads and
enterprise data helps us under-
stand and create machine learning
algorithms very differently.
PROFIT: What role does AI and
machine learning play in the area
of security?
KURIAN: The fundamental heart
of a security algorithm is an under-
standing of what people are doing
what operations on what systems
in the organization and whether
any of those operations are mali-
cious. Our technology uses AI, par-
ticularly machine learning and clus-
tering, to understand the patterns
by modeling systems. What are the
relationships between systems?
Who is accessing these systems?
Why are they accessing these sys-
tems? Our AI allows us to very
quickly compare anticipated behav-
ior against a user’s actual activity
within the system to flag whether
the user is nefarious or authorized.
We also applied AI and
machine learning to the Oracle
Autonomous Database solutions,
which Larry Ellison announced
at Oracle OpenWorld. There are
many mundane tasks required
to operate a piece of software.
There’s a certain tedium associ-
ated with these tasks, and staff
often does not perform them
consistently. They don’t really add
competitive advantage, so they
are not a priority to senior man-
agement. But if you don’t make
these mundane tasks a priority,
you can introduce significant secu-
rity vulnerabilities to the system.
So instead of having a human
do all of those tasks for a data-
base—install, configure, patch,
upgrade, back it up, and encrypt
it—the software does this auto-
matically on behalf of the user.
This gives you greater predictabil-
ity and accuracy in the way sys-
 IT needs the whole stack, but they can’t say, “Hey, we’ve got to go to
four different clouds to do that.”
tems are configured, at a substan-
tially lower cost.
PROFIT: Aside from AI and
machine learning, what other
emerging technologies do you
see having the greatest potential
to radically change business in
the decade ahead?
KURIAN: Three of the most
important new technologies we’re
looking at are chatbots, IoT, and
blockchain. The chatbot makes
messaging a client to any appli-
cation, essentially becoming the
new browser. It offloads the need
for human beings to be involved
in very mundane tasks—such as
answering basic questions—by
having a digital assistant do the
job. I believe chatbots will trans-
form the human interface.
IoT is a way to improve busi-
ness process efficiencies by instru-
32 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018
menting devices with sensors, and
it delivers the ability to respond
when sensors send information
up to the cloud-based system
that’s monitoring them. When you
are able to monitor logistics and
assets in that way, you can make
business process more efficient.
This will transform supply chains,
for example, by digitizing the flow
of data from the physical world,
which allows algorithms to interact
with physical space.
Blockchain is enabling any
business process that’s highly
centralized in a company to be
decentralized or distributed in a
fundamentally different way. For
example, intracompany transac-
tions could be totally transformed.
Today, when two different divi-
sions of a company reconcile their
financial positions, they have to do
a lot of manual reconciliation of
intracompany transactions. With
blockchain, you can use the [open
source project] Hyperledger as a
mechanism to guarantee integ-
rity of data, validating data that
may be subject to regulatory or
market scrutiny.
Each of these new technolo-
gies will transform the modern
business in its own way. Our job is
to make sure our customers have
the platform they need to adopt
these technologies as they see fit.
That is why I believe Oracle Cloud
makes the strongest case for
what enterprise IT will look like in
the future.
Aaron Lazenby is editor in chief
of Profit.
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 Oracle Blockchain Cloud Service
helps cloud-native fintech
Biz2Credit provide billions of
dollars in merchant cash advances.

LEDGER
TEST
BY SASHA BANKS-LOUIE
PHOTOGRAPHY BY PAUL S. HOWELL

Venkatesh Bala (left), Chief Risk Officer at Biz2Credit, with

Rohit Arora, the company’s Cofounder and CEO

34 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018

 Biz2Credit’s Venkatesh Bala (left)
and Rohit Arora note that Oracle
solutions help the company make
better assessments of a given
merchant’s risk profile.

The hope of achieving the

American dream has, for decades,
been the life force of economic
innovation and growth in the
United States. But for the country’s
nearly 30 million small businesses,
it takes more than entrepreneur-
ial spirit to realize that dream, let
alone sustain it. According to the
US Small Business Administration, ing source of collateral to secure a Oracle products: Personal quote/
the top two reasons small busi- commercial loan, a merchant cash Oracle Open mantra:
nesses fail are sluggish cash flow advance lender takes a percent- Banking Platform, “Never stop
Oracle Blockchain improving your-
and limited access to financing. age of a company’s future credit
SNAPSHOT Cloud Service self. If you stay
Yet the huge amount of capital card sales as repayment. stagnant, you will
BIZ2CREDIT
required to get a business loan “A small business may not have ROHIT ARORA be outrun. Always
biz2credit.com
from a bank has led many small- enough inventory, cash depos- strive to be a
Location: Cofounder and better, stronger
to-medium businesses (SMBs) its, or equipment to offer a bank CEO
New York City version of yourself
to seek alternative sources of as collateral,” explains Venkatesh tomorrow than
Industry: Length of tenure:
financing, such as merchant cash Bala, chief risk officer at Biz2Credit. 10 years you are today.”
Financial services
advances from lenders such “In most cases, however, a mer-
Employees: Education:
as Biz2Credit. chant can sell a portion of its MS in international
240
Unlike most banks that expect future credit card sales to acquire a finance, Columbia
a business owner to have an exist- cash advance immediately.” University

35 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018


Launched in 2007, the New
Lenders who York City–based financial tech-
participate in
nology (fintech) firm has devel-
the Biz2Credit
marketplace oped an online marketplace that
can view helps SMBs get access to short-
merchant profiles term funding through alternative
immediately and lenders, such as specialty banks,
return an approval hedge funds, and credit unions.
within seconds.
Cash advances range between
US$5,000 and US$200,000, and
approvals are made within a few
days. Rather than having to come
36 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018
up with collateral, Biz2Credit just
requires SMBs to show proof that
they’ve been in operation for at
least one year, have monthly credit
card sales of at least US$10,000,
have not declared bankruptcy in
the past year, and are free from
liens or other judgments filed
against them.
Biz2Credit’s lending platform
pulls data from an SMB’s finan-
cial summaries, tax records, and
350,000+
Number of SMBs Biz2Credit
has matched with lenders
US$2 billion
Amount in cash advances
Biz2Credit has helped
originate worldwide
payroll data, and then shares the
data with its member lenders on
the company’s online marketplace.
These lenders can also view digi-
tal loan applications and calculate
financial ratios (such as profitabil-
ity, gross margin, and debts to
assets), and then determine the
best payment terms and interest
rates based on each borrower’s
risk profile. The Biz2Credit plat-
form also allows lenders to con-
figure their own business rules
and generate scorecards to help
make accurate funding decisions.
Lenders can order third-party data
from credit bureaus, banks, and
the IRS directly from the platform,
which is automatically format-
ted for running reports on cash
flow analytics.
 The blockchain keeps a ledger of all the receivables and every payment,
and then will automatically set up spread payments in the settlement
ledger to accommodate revenue spikes and dips.
—Rohit Arora, Cofounder and CEO, Biz2Credit

After a lender approves an
application, it buys a fixed per-
centage of the merchant’s future
credit revenues, often at a dis-
count, with an average payback
period of between 6 and 12
months. To date, Biz2Credit has
matched more than 350,000 SMBs
with hundreds of lenders and has
helped originate more than US$2
billion in cash advances globally.
OPEN BANKING
Because Biz2Credit’s dataflows
are automated and available in the
cloud, lenders who participate in
the Biz2Credit marketplace can
view the merchant profiles imme-
diately and return an approval
within seconds. But the compa-
ny’s platform connects only to
partner feeds from banks and a
few credit card payment proces-
sors, limiting Biz2Credit’s ability to
verify all of a merchant’s financial
transactions directly from the mer-
chant’s book of record or general
ledger systems.
As a result, Biz2Credit sees
only a limited view of transactions
that have happened in the past.
“Without real-time visibility into
a merchant’s entire credit portfo-
lio, we’re exposing ourselves and
our lenders to significant risk,”
Bala says.
But collecting all of the data
associated with a merchant’s
credit portfolio can be a complex
task. For example, if a merchant
uses a credit card with Chase
Bank to purchase some items
for a store, and then the store
books US$10,000 of revenue,
Biz2Credit gets a split fee of 10
or 15 percent directly from the
credit card receipts provided by
the payment processor. Because
Biz2Credit collects the fee directly
from the credit card processor, if
the merchant switches credit card
processors, it’s very difficult for
Biz2Credit to know that a switch
has occurred, track down the new
processor, and then collect its fee.
For Biz2Credit, such collections
can take weeks and require the
company’s underwriters to manu-
ally verify each merchant’s account
status by calling banks and other

37 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018


BLOCKCHAIN
SIMPLIFIES
INTERNATIONAL
MONEY
TRANSFERS
Anyone who has trans-
ferred money internationally
between banks knows that
the process often takes too
long and costs too much.
Now, with the advent of
blockchain technology, trans-
ferring money should become
simpler and faster for cus-
tomers while also generating
more revenue for the banks.
The Society for Worldwide
Interbank Financial
Telecommunication (SWIFT),
a global cooperative that
provides secure inan-
cial messaging services,
is currently working on a
38 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018
blockchain-based global
payment initiative that
will provide secure, end-
to-end tracking for global
inancial transfers.
At this point, 30 banks
are live on the blockchain
platform, and SWIFT plans
to eventually connect more
than 11,000 licensed banks,
inancial institutions, and
corporations across more
than 200 countries. SWIFT
says the platform will also
enable future real-time regula-
tory compliance reporting to
central banks and law enforce-
ment agencies worldwide.
The SWIFT platform is
built on a cloud-based
Hyperledger Fabric, which
allows each member bank
to have a cloud-based peer
node that interfaces with
the SWIFT central node. The
central node provides trans-
actional consensus between
the two banks conducting
the transfer.
SWIFT’s blockchain technol-
ogy can provide
• Instant international bank
transfers. Transactions that
used to take days can be
realized instantly, because
compliance reporting to
central banks and regula-
tory agencies can be con-
ducted in real time.
• Lower cost of inter-
national bank-to-bank
transfers. Blockchain-
based Hyperledger smart
contracts can automate
the compliance process
and remove the human
cost element.
• Accurate compliance
reporting. Regulatory
reporting to central banks
and other agencies to pre-
vent money laundering can
be automated and trig-
gered in real time.
• No infrastructure to man-
age. The cloud-based
aspect of the blockchain
platform means that both
SWIFT and member banks
don’t have to maintain
any infrastructure in their
data centers, leading to
signiicant cost savings.
The SWIFT initiative is pow-
ered by Oracle Blockchain
Cloud Service, which is built
on the standards-based
Hyperledger Fabric version
1.0. This platform enables
organizations and institutions
to build production-ready
global blockchain networks
and rapidly deploy their
use cases.
Banks will eventually
become cloud-based peer
nodes on blockchain net-
works of inancial service
providers such as VISA,
MasterCard, and American
Express. This could lead to
the proliferation of cloud-
based blockchain platforms
in the very near future.
The challenge is to ensure
interoperability across
multiple blockchain plat-
form fabrics. Eventually,
standards-based blockchain
platforms that can scale glob-
ally in the cloud will prevail.
—Vivek Alwayn, Director,
Oracle Insight
 We can now see the risk profile of merchants in real time and
can make more-informed decisions about their ability to pay.
—Venkatesh Bala, Chief Risk Officer, Biz2Credit

financial institutions to get an
accurate read on the borrow-
er’s finances and ability to repay
the loan.
The only way to get a com-
plete view of a merchant’s finan-
cial transactions is if the merchant
opts in to give direct access to its
enterprise resource planning (ERP)
systems. Through this sort of per-
missioned access, Biz2Credit is
able to track all of the merchant’s
audited financial statements and
credit card receivables, regardless
of which card processor is used.
The result is less risk for Biz2Credit
and its lenders and more favor-
able terms for merchants.
Biz2Credit’s platform wasn’t
designed to access third-party
data directly, let alone ensure
that the connection is secure and
coming from a trusted source.
However, using the built-in API
layer that connects to Oracle ERP
systems, the Oracle Open Banking
Platform can help Biz2Credit pull
payment processor transaction
data into a single smart contract
that allows the merchant’s credit
card receipts to be shared with the
company and its lender partners.
Secured by Oracle Blockchain
Cloud Service, an application
within Oracle’s platform-as-a-
service portfolio that catalogs
and securely records financial
transactions between participants
on a shared blockchain ledger,
the contracted parties can control
which financial data is shared
and with whom.
After seeing demonstrations
of the Oracle Open Banking
Platform, Bala and other execu-
tives from Biz2Credit decided to
test the platform for its market-
place by creating a smart loan
contract using Oracle Blockchain
Cloud Service. Using the APIs
from the Oracle Open Banking
Platform, calls are made to the
Oracle Blockchain Cloud Service
application, which automatically
pulls in credit card receivables
and audited financial general
ledger information from a mer-
chant’s ERP application, helping
Biz2Credit record the transactions,
share them with lenders, and
then enforce the loan contracts
securely and in real time.
“Oracle Blockchain Cloud
Service gives Biz2Credit a direct
line of sight to the cash flow, debt-
to-loan ratios, and other financial

39 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018


metrics that merchants agree to
Biz2Credit helps share,” says Sanjay Mathew, senior
SMBs get access
director of financial services and
to short-term
funding through head of the Oracle Open Banking
alternative Platform. “The extensive visibility
lenders, such as assures lenders that merchants
specialty banks, will fulfill their financial obligations
hedge funds, and based on the terms of the con-
credit unions.
tract,” Mathew says.
Using Oracle Blockchain Cloud
Service, Biz2Credit helps lend-
ers verify the terms of the cash
advance in real time and com-
pare those terms against the
merchant’s audited financial data
40 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018
on the blockchain. These capa-
bilities allow lenders to quickly
identify merchants that have the
lowest-risk profiles, offer them the
most-favorable terms, and ulti-
mately close more deals.
Another reason Biz2Credit
chose to pilot the Oracle cloud
platform is the fact that hundreds
of thousands of SMBs are cur-
rently using Oracle ERP applica-
tions, NetSuite’s SuiteCloud ERP
platform, and NetSuite’s SuiteGL
application. “One compelling
advantage of using the Oracle
Open Banking Platform is the
embedded blockchain layer that
can connect directly to Oracle ERP
applications and permissioned
customer financials,” Mathew says.
SMARTER CONTRACTS
Blockchain is a form of distributed
ledger technology that maintains
records of all virtual currency
transactions on a network of com-
puters, such as those belonging
to banks, merchants, lenders, and
auditors. The blockchain network
was first introduced to the market
in 2008 for bitcoin payments, but
today companies are using it for
more than just managing crypto-
currency transactions.
Using a central third party, such
as a bank, or an offline reconcili-
ation tool, such as a spreadsheet,
can add costs, introduce human
errors, and delay decision-making.
Blockchain avoids those pitfalls by
using peer-to-peer protocols—
instructions that connect distrib-
uted participants in a digital net-
work—to provide a near-real-time
and indelible record that’s auto-
matically replicated among each
participant. (See sidebar for more
on blockchain.)
Today, Biz2Credit is testing
Oracle Blockchain Cloud Service
to integrate its marketplace with
permissioned ERP financial data
from all of its merchants’ bank
accounts in a public ledger. Using
the Oracle Open Banking Platform
API to pull merchant financial data
into the blockchain app and then
onto Biz2Credit’s lending plat-
form, the company can conduct
online transactions and confiden-
tially share data in real time with
lenders, banks, auditors, and other
 contracted parties. “We can now
see the risk profile of merchants in
real time and can make more-
informed decisions about their
ability to pay,” says Bala. “We can
also get permissioned access to
merchant financials without hav-
ing one of our underwriters make
a separate request for third-party
data from banks, credit bureaus,
or the IRS.”
Through the Smart Contracts
feature of Oracle Blockchain Cloud
Service, Biz2Credit can set bor-
rowing thresholds and adjustable
interest rates that will trigger auto-
matically as a merchant’s business
fluctuates. This helps merchants
get the best deal on their loans Smart contracting is particularly develop secure channels for lend-
and also assures lenders that their beneficial for merchants with sea- ers to manage their merchant After seeing
demonstrations of
minimum payment will be made. sonal revenue cycles. “The block- contracts privately. When lenders
the Oracle Open
For example, if a borrower starts chain keeps a ledger of all the join Biz2Credit’s marketplace, they Banking Platform,
making more money and is paying receivables and every payment, can create their own channels on Venkatash Bala
the loan back faster, Biz2Credit can and then will automatically set up the platform, deploy their own (above) and
automatically give the merchant a spread payments in the settlement versions of smart contracts, and other Biz2Credit
break on their interest rates, says ledger to accommodate revenue use their own protocols to connect executives
decided to test
company cofounder and CEO spikes and dips,” Arora says. with other participants.
the platform for
Rohit Arora. “In an offline environ- “It’s like driving on a turnpike its marketplace.
ment, it can’t be done. After a con- SECURE FUTURE where all of the drivers have their
tract is written, the interest rates Biz2Credit is also testing Oracle own lane,” says Kiran Murty, CTO
are locked in.” Blockchain Cloud Service to at Aurablocks, an Oracle partner

41 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018

 and blockchain specialty firm that
helped implement the Oracle
Blockchain Cloud Service pilot
at Biz2Credit. Using these chan-
nels, lenders benefit from having
a secure platform to record and
store confidential transactions
with the merchants under con-
tract, get better insight into
their changing risk portfolios,
and understand how best to
manage them.
By using Oracle Blockchain
Cloud Service to automate verifi-
cations, originations, and collec-
tions for merchant cash advances,
Biz2Credit estimates that it will cut
operating expenses by 21 per-
cent, increase its operating mar-
gin by 287 basis points, reduce
its merchant charge-off rate by 51
basis points, and increase its book
of business from US$1 billion to
US$1.25 billion.
Despite these benefits, there
are serious vulnerabilities that
open banking and blockchain APIs
can expose. Starting in May 2018,
the European Union’s General
Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
will enforce consumer data protec-
42 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018
tion laws and monitor companies
to ensure that they are securely
processing personal data. Because
the open banking architectures
will give Biz2Credit access to the
payment accounts of its merchant
customers in the EU, the company
is looking to Oracle to help it pre-
pare for the impending legislation
and increasing regulatory scrutiny.
“A promise of the Oracle Open
Banking Platform with Oracle
Blockchain Cloud Service is to
help companies that conduct
business in the EU to comply with
the GDPR,” says Mathew. With
real-time data sharing, automated
verification, and more-consistent
views of data shared between all
contracted parties, “the platform
not only helps banks and fin-
techs prepare for the impending
legislation; it also fundamentally
improves operational efficiencies
and reduces friction caused by
having to send multiple emails,
make phone calls, or reconcile
spreadsheets,” says Mathew.
In a market that the Small
Business Administration’s Office
of Economic Research reports
originated nearly US$600 billion in
loans for US-based SMBs in 2015,
up US$9.2 billion from 2014, open
banking and blockchain technolo-
gies offer new ways to share finan-
cial transaction data automatically,
securely, and in a way that’s visible
to all the contracted parties.
“We see it, the merchant sees
it, the auditor sees it, and the
underwriter sees it,” Arora says.
With Oracle Blockchain Cloud
Service, Arora adds, “we have
lower risk. Our lenders have lower
risk. And our merchants get a set
of flexible payment terms that
adjust to the ebbs and flows of
their businesses.”
Sasha Banks-Louie is a brand
journalist for Oracle and a content
strategist for SMBs.
ACTION ITEM
■ Read 451 Research's report on
Oracle Blockchain Cloud
PEOPLE DATA
CENTRAL
Health benefits company Anthem
builds analytics portal and team to
improve talent decisions. Joe Knytych, Staff
Vice President of
Talent Insights and
BY ROB PRESTON
Analytics, Anthem
PHOTOGRAPHY BY PAUL S. HOWELL
 L
ots of HR organizations talk
about becoming more stra-
tegic and data-driven. But
the talent management group SNAPSHOT
at health benefits company
ANTHEM
Anthem is stepping up to that antheminc.com
challenge, having assembled an
Location:
HR analytics team and created Indianapolis, Indiana
a portal to improve recruiting,
Industry:
hiring, promotion, succession, and Health benefits
other decisions—and ultimately
Revenue:
boost the productivity of the US$84 billion in 2016
entire company.
Employees:
Anthem, whose subsidiary 53,000
health plans serve more than 74
Oracle products:
million people and which posted Oracle Business Intelligence
US$84 billion in revenue in 2016, Cloud Service, Oracle Human
already is an industry leader in Capital Management Cloud
analyzing data to coach con-
sumers on ways to improve their JOE KNYTYCH
health outcomes. Now it’s extend- Staff Vice President
ing that data expertise to its own Length of tenure:
talent management practices. Three years
Key to that effort is the People Education:
Data Central (PDC) portal, whose BA in communication,
University of Illinois; MBA
in general management,
Anthem’s Joe Knytych appreciates Keller Graduate School of
the higher-level insights enabled by Business; MA Education in
a standardized enterprise view of the human resource development,
company’s data. University of Illinois

44 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018

 74 million
Number of people served
by Anthem’s subsidiary
health plans

interactive “workforce intelli-

gence” dashboard lets HR and
other Anthem users access and
ask questions of a range of inter-
nal and third-party data. What
does our turnover look like for call
center reps in Colorado Springs
or actuaries US-wide? What is the
cost of that turnover? Are we dif-
ferentiating rewards for our top
performers? How many of our
nurses might retire within the next
couple of years? What is the rela-
tionship between national unem-
ployment rates and our own time-
to-hire metrics?
A newly formed Talent Insights recently broke down Anthem’s card” feature explores the rela-
team, whose members include workforce by generational age tionship between HR metrics and Core to Anthem’s
People Data Central
MBAs, PhDs, and CPAs, brings an bands and the potential ramifica- business outcomes to support
(PDC) portal is its
eclectic mix of experiences and tions for company performance, short- and long-term planning. interactive “workforce
perspectives to that analysis. Each highlighting its analysis in the por- The team’s latest report described intelligence”
month, the team curates a differ- tal’s “insight spotlight” section. the relationship between customer dashboard.
ent slice of data. For example, it A high-level “executive score- growth, Anthem’s net hire ratio,

45 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018

 From ‘hire to retire,’ we’re using data to zero in on important needs
and potential solutions.
—Joe Knytych, Staff Vice President of Talent Insights and Analytics, Anthem
and total costs associated with
internal and external labor. In all,
PDC provides seven dashboards
on “hire-to-retire” HR operations,
50 summary views from which
users can drill down into detailed
reports, and links to other relevant
data and training sources.
The cloud-based PDC pulls
together data from and is built
on a range of third-party applica-
tions, platforms, and infrastruc-
ture services, leveraging Oracle
Business Intelligence Cloud
Service and Oracle Human Capital
Management Cloud (Oracle HCM
Cloud) at its core. An extract,
transform, and load (ETL) layer,
including the Data Sync service
of Oracle Business Intelligence
Cloud Service, pulls in internal and
third-party datasets from a range
of cloud and on-premises applica-
46 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018
tions as well as other sources.
Previously, much of Anthem’s
talent and other HR data was scat-
tered among myriad systems and
spreadsheets, making it difficult
to aggregate and compare. Basic
questions such as “How many
open positions do we have?” and
“What’s our turnover?” would
yield different answers depending
on who was asked, even within
the same workgroup or location.
Getting a standardized enter-
prise view of the data opens up
the prospect of applying analyt-
ics to derive higher-level insights,
says Joe Knytych, the staff vice
president who leads the Talent
Insights team.
“From ‘hire to retire,’ we’re
using data to zero in on important
needs and potential solutions,”
Knytych says. “These insights
allow us to invest in our people
with confidence and sharpen the
associate experience.”
ONE DATA VIEW
The beauty of the portal is that
it presents and filters data in
highly visual dashboards, reports,
graphs, and other formats so that
it’s easy to consume, comprehend,
and manipulate, Knytych says.
Part of the Talent Insights
team’s responsibility is to help
users mash up different kinds of
internal and third-party demo-
graphic, performance, compen-
sation, and other data. For exam-
ple, it’s working with Anthem’s
wellness team to crunch data
on employees who make use
of company wellness credits, to
determine a possible correlation
with reduced absenteeism and
 employee turnover. Third-party
data is used to benchmark sala-
ries to identify geographic areas
for expansion and for a variety of
other purposes.
But PDC is far more than a
tactical tool, Knytych empha-
sizes. Anthem sees the portal
as a jumping-off point for con-
tinued innovation in the area of
people management.
One recent PDC innovation
is a custom-built channel that
encourages employees to weigh
in confidentially on their work
experiences, as often as they
like, using emojis and limited
text entries. Those ongoing sen-
timents are dynamically turned
into “team vitals” reports, letting
company leaders quickly identify
and address potential productivity
risks. Behind the scenes, Knytych
and his team use that wealth of
data to connect aggregate trends
to performance, advancement,

Knytych sees People Data Central

as a jumping-off point for continued
innovation.

47 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018

 ARTIFICIAL
INTELLIGENCE:
THE NEXT HR
TECHNICAL
FRONTIER
Artiicial intelligence (AI)
has major implications for
a broad range of business
processes — most nota-
bly the people-centered
activity of human capital
management (HCM).
The latest release of
Oracle Human Capital
Management Cloud includes
several AI-based features.
For example, one feature
lets job seekers interact
with so-called chatbots
to learn more about open
positions and the employ-
er’s recruiting process or to
get suggestions on other
job opportunities. Another
48 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018
feature offers hiring man-
agers recommendations for
best-it candidates. Another
gives recruiters predictions
on whether a candidate will
accept a job offer.
During a session at Oracle
OpenWorld 2017, Gretchen
Alarcon, group vice president
for Oracle’s HCM strategy,
outlined a number of other
scenarios in which artiicial or
adaptive intelligence even-
tually could help managers
develop better connections
with their employees.
Possible future Oracle
HCM Cloud capabilities now
in the research stage include
a chatbot that helps iden-
tify appropriate candidates
for internal promotion; the
use of natural language
processing to turn text- and
screen-based performance
reviews into more-interactive
exercises; and even the
use of facial recognition
software as an advanced
management tool.
In Alarcon’s video demon-
stration of the chatbot, it
alerted a manager that the
organization needed a leader
for a speciic project. After
searching internal candi-
dates, the system identiied
three potential its, one of
whom needed training. The
manager approved the can-
didate, and the system sent
a message to the woman
offering her a promotion
and asking her to complete
an application to attend a
training course. The system
also asked the manager if
it could send an updated
project summary to the
relevant team.
When people think about
the concept of a connected
workforce, they envision
being able to access the
same information and com-
municate easily in real time.
But what if we could access
an employee’s mood as well?
Facial recognition tech-
nology could eventually do
that, alerting an employee’s
manager about an unsuccess-
ful meeting or the perceived
level of engagement the
employee has on a project.
Such a tool might seem “far
out there,” Alarcon said,
but customers have already
asked about how to gauge
the effectiveness or success
of meetings. “It’s not crazy-
town,” she said. “We are
actually thinking about this
right now.”
— Monica Mehta
 We’re tapping into local insights and formulating long-term plans
based on data, not speculation.
—Joe Knytych, Staff Vice President of Talent Insights and Analytics, Anthem
and other talent outcomes.
“Engagement is now a daily
topic as opposed to an annual
event,” Knytych says. “More
importantly, we’re learning what
drives a positive experience and
what might happen following
a downtick.”
In many cases, he notes, com-
pany leaders find nuggets they can
act on immediately, such as ideas
to improve processes, enhance
systems, or reprioritize resources.
“The voice of our associates is
stronger than ever,” he says.
“We’re tapping into local insights
and formulating long-term plans
based on data, not speculation.”
BREAKING DOWN SILOS
More broadly, the Talent Insights
team is helping the other cen-
ters of expertise within Anthem’s
49 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018
HR organization (diversity and
inclusion, benefits, HR busi-
ness partners, and so on), as
well as decision-makers outside
of HR, see “multivariant” views
of the people data, Knytych
says. For instance, how are the
high-potential associates they’ve
invested in advancing com-
pared with people elsewhere in
the company?
“The business partners typi-
cally have had access only to their
business unit data, looking at their
people and talent,” he says. “Now
they have access to enterprise
talent trends, either to benchmark
against or to say, ‘Let’s connect
with another group that seems to
have solved this problem.’”
As such, PDC is helping
Anthem’s talent management
team forge new relationships
and raise its profile across the
company. For example, the team
developed a model that identi-
fies causes of turnover and accu-
rately predicts first-year attrition,
which Anthem leaders are using
to increase retention and inform
future hiring profiles.
DEEP-DIVE PROJECTS
In addition to standardizing on
key metrics, managing the portal’s
self-service data capabilities, and
deciding which views and sto-
ries have the most relevance, the
Talent Insights team has commit-
ted to take on several high-impact,
deep-dive data analytics projects
a year, which are chosen by the
senior HR management team in
association with the company’s
other executive leaders. Among
the current priorities are projects
 around workforce productivity,
turnover, and diversity.
There’s no shortage of demand
for the team’s services, Knytych
says. “Generally speaking, peo-
ple see value in data and analyt-
ics,” he says. “The constraint is
capacity, as these projects can be
resource-intensive and iterative in
nature. Relentless prioritization is
needed to ensure we’re focused
on the right questions.”
Anthem HR is investing in cul-
tivating a data mindset and data
competencies across the com-
pany. It provides Talent Insights
team members with regular train-
ing and stretch assignments to
build their predictive analytics,
data visualization, and storytell-
ing skills. Other HR associates get
training to improve their data acu-
men and ability to access, manip-
ulate, and customize the portal’s
data. A Talent Insights Network,
including representatives from
outside the HR organization,
serves as something of an advi-
sory board on PDC enhancements
and priorities.
50 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018
Anthem’s business leaders
have used data and analytics for
years to make informed decisions
and investments, Knytych notes.
Now—thanks in part to its Oracle-
based cloud platform, which took
less than six months to deploy, as
well as the subsequent training—
the HR organization is able to
match that same level of sophisti-
cation when it comes to decisions
about the company’s people.
“Taking advantage of new tech-
nology and lessons learned, we
are leapfrogging traditional invest-
ments,” he says. “We’re not build-
ing a data center for HR. We’re not
hiring teams of database adminis-
trators. With support from our IT
organization, we’re going straight
to the cloud, all-in, maintained
by Oracle and managed by us.
This approach improves total cost
of ownership and enables HR to
move at the speed of business.”
A critical consideration,
Knytych says, was finding a plat-
form that’s flexible and scal-
able enough to accommodate
ever-increasing amounts and new
types of data—“and not break
what we’ve done before.”
The future of analytics at
Anthem, he says, is “analytics for
everyone.” That is, any nontechni-
cal associate should be able to go
into PDC to form a hypothesis or
“curate a story” for his or her own
purposes. Using “guided path”
views and a variety of data filters,
HR managers and other associates
can dynamically generate reports
and dashboards to help them
improve hiring, promotion, succes-
sion, and other key decisions.
“We’re not trying to put our
arms around it and say we own
data and analytics,” Knytych says.
“We want everyone in HR to take
ownership of analytics and use
data to improve talent decisions.”
Rob Preston is editorial direc-
tor in Oracle’s Content Central
organization. Follow Preston at
@robpreston.
ACTION ITEM
■ Register for Oracle HCM World
 PROTECTIVE MEASURES
THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

Nimble technology solutions can defend against today’s

ever-changing security threats.
BY MINDA ZETLIN

In the confusing world of enterprise security, one

thing is certain: the potential for devastating attacks is
higher than it’s ever been. “Ten or fifteen years ago,
there were security concerns on the internet, but noth-
ing like what we’ve seen in the last couple of years,”
BIG IDEAS

says Rohit Gupta, group vice president of cloud secu-

rity products at Oracle. “Back then, these were con-
sidered annoyances—where someone would deface
a website, for example. Now it’s highly orchestrated
and highly funded. Many attacks are nation-sponsored.
Businesses have to be vigilant like they’ve never had to
in their histories.”
Compounding the problem is the fact that security is
a constantly moving target, with new threats appearing
as quickly as known threats are dealt with. “We use the
term arms race,” says Douglas C. Schmidt, professor of
engineering, computer science, and computer engineer-
ing at Vanderbilt University. “There’s a race between
people trying to protect themselves and the bad guys
and bad gals who are trying to break in. The adversaries
are getting more and more talented. It’s really hard to
keep up.”
To help enterprises cope with the ongoing menace,

51 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018 ILLUSTR ATION: WES ROWELL

 Oracle’s new group of security
THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

products is designed to protect

data in the hybrid cloud environ-
ment used at most large orga- As users are connecting from anywhere using both
nizations these days. Here’s a
look at some of the most press-
managed and unmanaged devices, the approaches
ing security-related business used to secure the old network perimeter are no
problems enterprises face and
how emerging technologies can
longer really relevant.
address them. —ADINA SIMU, VICE PRESIDENT OF PRODUCT MANAGEMENT, ORACLE CASB CLOUD SERVICE
BIG IDEAS

PROBLEM: THE DISAPPEARING

PERIMETER
SOLUTION: HYBRID CLOUD
SECURITY
In the past, the best way to keep a
company’s data safe was to build
a wall around its internal network
that was as impenetrable as pos-
sible. “In the past, the entire orga-
nization’s electronic access was
completely cordoned off,” says
Prakash Ramamurthy, senior vice
president and general manager,
systems management and security,
Oracle Cloud. “You couldn’t bring
a random home machine and do
something with it, and you couldn’t
be outside your organization’s net-
work, sitting at home or in a coffee
shop, and get access. You had to
go through a virtual private net-
work, which inherently provided a
greater level of control.”
Many IT departments still use
this approach to security, but it’s
grown less and less effective.
“Enterprise functions in the
cloud are driving the dissolu-
tion of the network perimeter,”
says Adina Simu, vice president
of product management, Oracle
CASB Cloud Service. “As users
are connecting from anywhere
using both managed and unman-
aged devices, the approaches
used to secure the old network
perimeter are no longer really
relevant.” Instead, she says, users
themselves represent the new
perimeter. This will only become
more true as applications and data
migrate to the cloud.
To meet this challenge, a range
of new cloud-based security solu-
tions has emerged, Simu explains,
such as those built into Oracle
Cloud. The best course of action
is to rely on these new security
solutions, which can protect an
enterprise’s data and processes
wherever users may be and which
offer consistent security features
across hybrid deployments.
“This move to the cloud, it’s
not rip-and-replace,” says Darren
Calman, vice president of product
management, Oracle identity man-
agement and security. “People
have invested time and money

52 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP
ONCE PURELY
MALICIOUS,
CYBERCRIME
IS NOW BIG
BUSINESS
BIG IDEAS
There’s a reason cyber-
attacks and data theft are
so much greater a threat
than they were a few years
ago: Cybercrime has become
very lucrative. Picture a
cybercriminal and you might
imagine a nefarious igure
in a hoody, hunched over a
bank of computers in a base-
ment somewhere. But these
days it might instead be a
multimillionaire relaxing in a
mountaintop villa purchased
with the proceeds of his
ill deeds.
“We used to have imper-
sonal attacks, not necessarily
53 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018
targeted and not neces-
sarily sophisticated,” says
Troy Kitch, senior direc-
tor of Oracle cloud secu-
rity. “Over time, they’ve
become more sophisti-
cated and more targeted.”
Both nations and individ-
uals have learned how
to attack organizations,
he says, and there are real
incentives to do so. “There’s
this underground economy
that thrives on data breaches
and selling information.”
And where data theft was
once limited to those with
the sophisticated knowledge
of how to pull it off, these
days anyone who wants to
can simply purchase on the
black market tools to do
so and then earn back that
investment by selling the
stolen data.
And if today’s enterprises
can beneit from automation,
so can cybercriminals. “The
new wave of security attacks
are different from the way
they were carried out in the
past,” says Adina Simu, vice
president of product man-
agement, Oracle CASB
Cloud Service.
“They are no longer car-
ried out by humans; they are
carried out by bots, hijacked
devices that start attacking
other sites and other orga-
nizations. These attacks are
no longer within the network
perimeter of the enterprise —
in many cases they’re outside
in your DNS [Domain Name
System] service or your cloud
provider or your public-
facing application.
And they’re not static:
someone could penetrate
some of your defenses
and then lie low waiting
for the right opportunity
to move laterally and steal
credentials.” In fact, many
attacks these days begin
with the theft of creden-
tials, with miscreants then
using those credentials to
steal data, hijack devices, or
install ransomware.
This is why most security
experts recommend assum-
ing that your organization’s
defenses will be breached at
some point, and it’s why they
emphasize the importance
of having visibility into both
your data and your users, as
well as having an automated
way to immediately remedi-
ate security breaches.
“The most secure compa-
nies in the world are get-
ting attacked. It’s a contin-
ual thing,” Kitch says. “As
organizations, we have not
done enough to address
these threats. A lot of peo-
ple think, ‘I’m secure today;
therefore I’ll be secure
tomorrow.’ But as secu-
rity threats shift, that isn’t
necessarily true.”
 in developing their on-premises
THOUGHT LEADERSHIP
assets. So you have some on
premises and some in the cloud,
and you need a single pane of
glass to manage both. That’s
where hybrid security comes in.”
PROBLEM: SHADOW IT AND
MULTIPLE CLOUD VENDORS
SOLUTION: A CLOUD ACCESS
SECURITY BROKER
BIG IDEAS
While IT leaders might talk about
moving to “the cloud,” the fact is
they’re usually moving to several
clouds. Indeed, Simu says the
cloud is not just SaaS [software
as a service]—a lot of workloads
are moving into platform as a
service [PaaS] and infrastructure
as a service [IaaS] creating a het-
erogeneous cloud environment
within the enterprise. "The aver-
age enterprise will use six differ-
ent cloud providers just to run its
workloads,” she says.
Customers share responsibil-
ity for security to varying degrees
in each of these cloud engage-
ments, so managing different
cloud deployments can lead to
confusion. A key danger is “con-
figuration drift,” in which cloud
54 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018
accounts wind up with inappropri-
ate security.
“People are setting things up
with the wrong configurations,”
says Jules White, assistant pro-
fessor of computer science at
Vanderbilt University. In one
recent case a defense contrac-
tor stored personal data for job
applicants—some of it classified
as top secret—in an Amazon Web
Services S3 bucket configured to
allow public access. There have
been other similar incidents with
other cloud providers. With per-
haps thousands of different con-
figuration combinations available
for some cloud systems, it’s all too
easy to make a mistake.
A cloud access security bro-
ker such as Oracle CASB Cloud
Service can take the guesswork
and errors out of configuring
cloud accounts, and it can give IT
departments visibility into all their
cloud-based data. “CASBs include
big data analytics and deliver sur-
gical insight for forensic analysis,”
Simu says. “Gartner says CASBs
will soon be what firewalls used to
be in the on-premises world.”
A CASB with machine learning
monitors user behavior and looks
for abnormal usage patterns of
cloud applications. Such a ser-
vice offers the added benefit of
giving you insight into—and per-
haps control of—shadow IT, espe-
cially because the CASB can scan
many of the most commonly used
cloud-based applications such
as Dropbox, Box, Evernote, and
Microsoft Office 365.
Using one can be eye-opening.
“Ask an IT organization how many
applications its company has that
access the cloud. For a small or
midsize organization, they’ll say
10,” says Troy Kitch, senior direc-
tor of Oracle cloud security. “Then
you run a CASB and it will turn out
to be 300. In a large organization
they may say 100, and in reality it
will be 3,000.”
PROBLEMS: THE SECURITY
SKILLS GAP AND THE NEED
FOR SPEED
SOLUTION: IDENTITY
MANAGEMENT
By 2019, there will be at least
2 million unfilled security jobs
worldwide, according to the
House of Lords Digital Skills
 Committee in the UK. “We tell
THOUGHT LEADERSHIP
students that this is one of those
eternal problems,” Vanderbilt's
Schmidt says. “There will never be
a time when security expertise will
not be a valuable skill.”
Automating as many processes
as possible is the only viable solu-
tion to the skills shortage, experts
agree. So Oracle has introduced
orchestration and remediation
BIG IDEAS
solutions that leverage context
and automation principles. “We
can deliver both supervised auto-
mation, making changes only with
human approval, and unsupervised
automation, which makes changes
automatically,” Gupta says.
Sensitive data that’s unencrypted
is a good example of how unsu-
pervised automation can be use-
ful, he adds. “Guess what? That’s
black and white. It’s unencrypted,
and that’s wrong. It should be
encrypted. Turn encryption on.”
An identity-centered approach
is the best way to manage secu-
rity in the cloud, Kitch says. “A
lot of security tools in particular
were not created with cloud in
mind,” he says. As a result, most
enterprise customers believe the
55 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018
security tools they already have
are not appropriate for a hybrid
cloud environment. And that con-
cern might be holding back cloud
adoption. In a survey last year by
consulting firm Baker McKenzie,
88 percent of respondents cited
security as the primary reason they
were hesitant to move to cloud.
Putting identity at the center of it
all, Kitch adds, is the best method
for protecting data.
And while the skills gap puts
added pressure on IT depart-
ments and their mandate to keep
vital data secure, these teams are
also under pressure to deploy new
technology at an unprecedented
pace. For many veteran IT profes-
sionals, the obvious solution is to
lock everything down, presuming
that all users and processes are
guilty until proven innocent. But
that doesn’t work in today’s world.
“There is business pressure not
to say no to innovation,” says Dan
Koloski, vice president of product
management at Oracle. “People
in the business want to spin faster
and demand more flexibility out of
IT. Saying no is not an option, so
we have to continuously update
our security posture at the speed
of business.”
The best way to accomplish this
is to harness the power of artifi-
cial intelligence. Prior to the avail-
ability of solutions such as Oracle
Management Cloud, existing tools
depended on operators to ask
the right questions, according to
Ramamurthy. “We decided to use
artificial intelligence to understand
what normal behavior was. And
when things deviate from that
learned normal behavior, we give
intelligent information back to the
customer,” he says.
Over time, the service creates a
profile of a user’s typical behavior,
he explains. So if a user accesses
only marketing systems and emails
from the United States 99 percent
of the time, and the service sees
that same user’s credentials log-
ging in from a new geographic
location and accessing the compa-
ny’s finance database, that might
trigger an automatic response.
That response might simply
be that the next time the user
logs in, he or she is required to
use two-factor authentication and
enter a five-digit code that has
 been texted to a mobile phone.
THOUGHT LEADERSHIP
“The odds that someone who
compromised your credentials
also has your phone are pretty
low,” Ramamurthy explains. “We
don’t need to create a five-alarm
fire around this, because false
positives are as much a problem
for enterprises as not finding the
real issue.” If a security system
generates too many false posi-
BIG IDEAS
tives, users and IT staff will simply
start assuming that every alarm
is unwarranted. Worse, if false
alarms prove too much of an
inconvenience, users might start
looking for ways to circumvent
security altogether.
An identity-centric approach
also helps enterprises respond
to threats without unduly incon-
veniencing users. “You can surgi-
cally remediate a specific user or
users rather than having to shut
down an entire application,” Simu
explains. At the same time, you
can limit that user’s ability to do
harm. “Depending on what a user
is doing, you can say, ‘OK, this is
malicious enough,’ and remediate
with actions that affect not only
that application but also other
56 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018
False positives are as much a problem for enterprises
as not finding the real issue.
—PRAKASH RAMAMURTHY, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT AND GENERAL MANAGER, SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT
AND SECURITY, ORACLE CLOUD
applications the user is accessing.”
And when time is of the
essence, automation makes all the
difference. “Remediation needs to
happen in real time,” Simu adds.
“In many cases, these attacks are
carried out by bots and tools, and
they don’t wait a lot. When they
find a vulnerability, they move very
quickly to the next level.”
PROBLEM: MAINTAINING
COMPLIANCE IN A SHIFTING
LANDSCAPE
SOLUTION: ORACLE SECURITY
SOLUTIONS FOR GDPR
In May 2018, the European
Union’s General Data Protection
Regulation (GDPR) takes effect.
Many enterprise IT and security
leaders are scrambling to get
ready. “GDPR has many organiza-
tions concerned because a mean-
ingful 4 percent of your revenues
could be fined,” Ramamurthy says.
“That’s very, very tangible.”
GDPR, which aims to protect
the privacy and personal data of
EU citizens, is merely the newest
compliance challenge for compa-
nies already coping with Sarbanes-
Oxley, the Health Insurance
Portability and Accountability Act
(HIPAA), and the Payment Card
Industry Data Security Standard
(PCI DSS). Most IT organizations
are also responsible for comply-
ing with internal and external
audit rules, as well as partner and
customer agreements. Because
Oracle customers have had these
responsibilities for years or some-
 times decades, Oracle is well
THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

equipped to help them stay com-

pliant with GDPR as well.
“GDPR is fundamentally about People in the business want to spin faster and demand
protecting personally identifi-
able information,” Koloski says.
more flexibility out of IT. Saying no is not an option, so
“Among other things, the reg- we have to continuously update our security posture at
ulations expect enterprises to
demonstrate that they have con-
the speed of business.
trol and they know who has access —DAN KOLOSKI, VICE PRESIDENT OF PRODUCT MANAGEMENT, ORACLE
and that they can respond when
BIG IDEAS

they find violations.” Unfortunately,

he says, most enterprises don’t
have that visibility or the capability
to respond because of their out-
dated security approaches.
Oracle solutions, including
Oracle Advanced Security and
Oracle’s security-focused cloud
services, can help. “To help
achieve regulatory compliance,
organizations should encrypt
data both at rest and in transit,”
Simu says. “They should be able
to collect system logs, maintain
least privilege and separation of
duties, and control user access.”
This is especially important in the
case of production databases
involved in the daily processing
of transactions.
“Our solutions are data collec-
tion capabilities, machine learning,
AI-powered analytics, and auto-
mation, all in an integrated suite,”
Ramamurthy says. “If you don’t
have all of those pieces, you won’t
be able to automate as much
as you need to. Enterprises are
struggling to come to grips with
the automated security challenge,
because for the past 30 years,
they haven’t needed to do that.”
Oracle is in a unique position to
help because of its history, he says.
“We understand what it is to deal
with huge amounts of data. We
also have compute horsepower.”
And because Oracle has for years
offered products that work across
complex IT environments, both on
premises and in cloud, the com-
pany understands how to provide
security and remediation across
a hybrid cloud, he adds. “We’re
one of the few vendors qualified
to address these next-generation
security challenges.”
Minda Zetlin is a coauthor, with
Bill Pfleging, of The Geek Gap:
Why Business and Technology
Professionals Don’t Understand
Each Other and Why They Need
Each Other to Survive (Prometheus
Books, 2016).
ACTION ITEM
■ Modernize Your Security
Operations Center

57 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018

SECURE THE FUTURE
It’s time for a new approach to
cybersecurity that creates a protective
foundation for the future.
A once-in-a-generation shift,
unlike anything CIOs and chief
PERSPECTIVE
information security officers
(CISOs) have seen in their
careers, is upending cyber-
security strategies today. On
the surface, things look famil-
iar—after all, enterprise leaders
have long been playing a per-
sistent cat-and-mouse game
with well-funded hackers, and
CYBERSECURITY’S that’s not about to change.
But dig deeper, and it’s
obvious that the stakes are
NEW NORMAL getting higher. That’s because
all enterprise information, not
just traditional targets such as
financial accounts, is gaining
ROHIT GUPTA, Group Vice President in value as data and analytics
of Cloud Security Products at Oracle
transform business models. As
Jeff Pollard, principal analyst
58 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018 PHOTOGR APH: BOB ADLER / THE VERBATIM AGENCY
at Forrester Research, recently
told the Wall Street Journal,
cybersecurity will become a
top priority for many CIOs
in the coming year as com-
panies increasingly monetize
data and see it as “an incred-
ibly valuable commodity.”
Cyberthieves are seeing the
same trend.
At the same time, secu-
rity challenges are growing as
well-defined network perime-
ters give way to highly distrib-
uted enterprise ecosystems
created by public and hybrid
clouds and mobile applications.
Making matters worse,
most enterprises simply can’t
attract and retain enough
qualified security talent. One
 study estimates that 1 mil-
SECURE THE FUTURE
lion such jobs currently go
unfilled, a number that could
more than triple by 2021.
The result: it’s time for
a new approach to cyber-
security that creates a protec-
tive foundation for the future.
AUTOMATION IS
PERSPECTIVE
THE ANSWER
Part of the answer comes
with new, cloud-based secu-
rity platforms that provide an
integrated suite of services.
With automation of security
processes as a key compo-
nent, the best of these plat-
forms offer everything from
identity management and
cloud access security brokers
to regulatory compliance and
configuration monitoring.
By augmenting all aspects
of security processes, enter-
prise cyberdefense systems
can automatically detect
vulnerabilities and fix them
before an attack takes place.
For instance, if an organized
group of hackers finds a way
to break through defenses,
59 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018
A pervasive threat is the shadow IT systems people adopt
without getting approval from the IT department.
automated systems can
quickly identify the breach
and alert security officials or
take predetermined actions
to limit damage.
Automation can also
mitigate another pervasive
threat: the shadow IT sys-
tems people adopt without
getting approval from the IT
department. Common exam-
ples include web-based ser-
vices for note taking and file
sharing, which are often free
to download and danger-
ous to use when they don’t
come with enterprise-class
security controls. If employ-
ees are storing customers’
financial records in these
consumer-oriented platforms,
that’s a problem. Because
they’re focusing on conve-
nience and productivity rather
than on safeguarding data,
employees might not con-
sider where information will
be stored, whether it will be
encrypted, or how regularly
the associated servers will
perform backups.
The latest security plat-
forms perform shadow dis-
covery—the ability to identify
applications running in the
enterprise, who is using them,
the sensitive or regulated
data that is flowing in and out
of them, and whether hack-
ers are chatting about the
vulnerability of the programs
on the Dark Web. Based on
the associated risks, CIOs and
CISOs can take appropriate
action, whether that’s steering
end users to approved alter-
natives or licensing enterprise
versions of the applications.
PREPARE FOR A
NEW NORMAL
Sophisticated cloud-based
security platforms, such
as Oracle Identity Security
Operations Center and
Oracle Management Cloud,
give CIOs and CISOs the
automation tools they need
to forecast, prevent, detect,
and remediate cybersecurity
threats. Just as important,
as security professionals use
resources like these to for-
tify their organizations today,
they’re preparing their organi-
zations for tomorrow’s brave
new world of cybersecurity.
ACTION ITEM
■ How to Modernize Your
Security Operations Center
 EVOLVING THE ENTERPRISE
THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

Award-winning CIOs discuss how emerging technologies require a change

in focus, strategy, culture, and infrastructure
BY MONICA MEHTA

Leading CIOs in every industry around the world

are experimenting with emerging technologies such
as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning,
the Internet of Things (IoT), chatbots, blockchain, and
natural-language processing (NLP). Gartner’s 2017 CIO
BIG IDEAS

Agenda Report established that one of the differentiat-

ing practices of a high-performing business is focusing
investments on moving the technology core forward
and testing emerging technologies.
As the CIO of one of those successful businesses,
Motorola Corporate Vice President and CIO Greg
Meyers calls technologies such as AI “the fourth gen-
eration of change” in industry, after the invention of
mechanical power, the advent of electricity, and the
development of digital systems.
“You can’t just ignore it because of what could go
wrong,” says Meyers. “You’ve got to adopt it and under-
stand it, because it’s something that can provide tre-
mendous commercial value. The more people under-
stand it, the better it will be, and the more we will be
able to manage it.”
Adoption of these new technologies can seem daunt-
ing, but the CIOs featured in this article are comfort-

60 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018 ILLUSTR ATION: WES ROWELL

 able with taking on the challenge.
THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

These technology leaders sug-

gest four main strategies enter-
prises should keep in mind when
If you're transparent about what’s happening and
approaching emerging technolo- create a safe atmosphere for experimentation, over
gies: focus on the customer expe-
rience, be strategic in implement-
time people will feel comfortable adopting these
ing the technology for specific new technologies.
business problems, develop the
—GREG MEYERS, CORPORATE VICE PRESIDENT AND CIO, MOTOROLA
right team and culture for innova-
tion, and ensure that your infra-
BIG IDEAS

structure is modernized and ready.

START WITH THE CUSTOMER
Every CIO interviewed prioritized
one strategy when thinking about
implementing emerging tech-
nologies: focus on the customer
experience. Scott Dillon, executive
vice president, CTO, and head of
enterprise information technology
at the global banking and finan-
cial services company Wells Fargo,
says companies need to start by
understanding their customers’
expectations and needs.
“Everything we think about is
driven by the customer experi-
ence—enabling that customer to
do business the way they want to
do it to get the experience they’re
driving to,” says Dillon. “And so
the technology we look at, and
how we evaluate it, starts and
ends with that lens.”
Yogesh Malik, group chief tech-
nology officer at VEON, a global
telecommunications provider
headquartered in Amsterdam, the
Netherlands, is looking specifically
at AI and NLP as keys to a better
customer experience. VEON has
already introduced chatbots with
customers in Russia and some sur-
rounding countries.
“How can I make the end con-
sumer’s life easier? We are taking
AI and language processing to the
next level in practical applications
and simplifying our interface with
customers,” says Malik.
Motorola’s Meyers says the con-
sumerization of IT has put pressure
on CIOs to make their companies’
IT more modern—both internally
and externally. “The next genera-
tion of employees as well as cus-
tomers are demanding that IT no
longer be a back-office function—
it’s very much in the front office
and plays a big role in customer
experience,” he says.
Meyers says the customers
of Motorola, an American data
communications and telecom-
munications equipment pro-
vider, are looking for devices
that allow them to communicate
as well as share data and intel-
ligence. Motorola is working on

61 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP
STELLAR
PERFORMANCE
BIG IDEAS
The CIO of the Year awards,
part of the Oracle Excellence
Awards, are given annually
to CIOs who have displayed
unequalled performance and
vision in using Oracle tech-
nology to improve the orga-
nization, the customer and
partner experience, and the
bottom line. Congratulations
to the 2017 winners:
Dave Curran, CIO,
Westpac Group
Curran and his team
embarked on an enterprise-
wide transformation to dig-
itize customer capabilities
62 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018
with a modern technology
architecture, while grow-
ing revenue and reducing
operating costs.
Scott Dillon, Executive
Vice President, Chief
Technology Officer,
and Head of Enterprise
Information Technology,
Wells Fargo
Since joining Wells Fargo,
Dillon has helped to
focus the organization on
standardizing and modern-
izing technology across the
bank, with the goal of reduc-
ing risk and costs through
simpliication. Dillon consoli-
dated and modernized more
than 5,000 of Wells Fargo’s
Oracle databases—a project
seen as one of the most suc-
cessful IT initiatives at Wells
Fargo today.
Yasufumi Hirai, Executive
Vice President, CIO, and
Chief Information Security
Officer, Rakuten
Hirai is focused on driving
Rakuten’s productivity and
business value, making
the most of the company’s
big data, and dedicating
time and resources to
mobile —which accounts
for more than 50 percent
of its transactions.
Yogesh Malik, Group Chief
Technology Officer, VEON
After launching high-speed
4G/LTE networks in six coun-
tries in just one year and
consolidating networks after
mergers in Italy and Pakistan,
Malik has taken VEON on an
unprecedented global busi-
ness support system transfor-
mation, creating state-of-the-
art, data-centric billing and
customer care systems.
Greg Meyers, Corporate
Vice President and CIO,
Motorola Solutions
To support Motorola’s trans-
formation from a products
company to a software com-
pany, Meyers has focused on
the intersection of people,
process, and technology.
Meyers implemented cloud
technology, moved to man-
aged data centers to free
resources, and moved disas-
ter recovery to the cloud
to give the company more
capital and visibility into
recurring revenues.
Fredson Oliveira, CIO,
Grupo Ultra
Under Oliveira’s direction,
Grupo Ultra — including
Ultragaz, a liqueied
petroleum gas distribution
company; Ipiranga, a fuel dis-
tribution company; Oxiteno,
a multinational chemical com-
pany; and Ultracargo, a bulk
liquids storage and logistics
company— successfully con-
solidated all of its companies’
disparate enterprise resource
planning solutions.
 a voice-recognizing chatbot that
THOUGHT LEADERSHIP
can participate in a two-way talk
group, so that a police officer
or firefighter can interact with a
chatbot when checking a license
plate or identifying a person.
Using AI and voice in this way
would speed up the relay of infor-
mation and free up resources in
the command center to perform
nonroutine tasks.
BIG IDEAS
SOLVING PROBLEMS
Wells Fargo’s Dillon says that when
thinking about technologies such
as machine learning or IoT, many
technology leaders get lost in
the “shiny object” and follow the
“trend of the moment.” Instead, he
says, evaluate the technology to
find an outcome that leverages it.
For Wells Fargo, these out-
comes include making the cus-
tomer experience frictionless,
automating routine business pro-
cesses to cut costs, and providing
better fraud detection. “Since day
one, we’ve been making sure that
our work is purpose-driven from
the business,” he says.
Motorola’s Meyers links the
technology to a business issue.
63 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018
“Try to get underneath a known
problem in the organization
today—for instance, forecast accu-
racy—and be strategic about find-
ing the solution,” he says.
One of the most pressing prob-
lems for one of Motorola’s most
important customer segments—
law enforcement—is the identifi-
cation of missing children. Using
AI technology, the company is
developing wearable cameras that
can use image detection to match
faces with a database of children
that have been reported missing.
The AI system could push images,
stored in the cloud, to the camera
as a police officer walks around an
area, alerting the officer if there is
a match.
Another major concern for law
enforcement is the safety of police
officers. To solve that problem,
Motorola is using IoT technology
to work on a system of sensors
for law enforcement firearms. The
physical sensors can detect when
a gun has been pulled out of a
holster and the officer’s heartrate
is elevated. The system then sends
a message that automatically turns
on the officer’s wearable cam-
era and streams the video back
to the command center in real
time. This would eliminate the
need for officers to place a call
for additional help, and it would
also send backup resources faster
and provide automatic video foot-
age of the incident for legal and
training purposes.
A SEEDBED FOR INNOVATION
VEON’s Malik says the first step
to successfully introducing new
technologies into the business is
developing the right people and
culture. VEON is actively searching
for new talent with skills in AI and
machine learning. Beyond that, he
says, “we are constantly thinking
about the question, how do we
build a culture that can embrace
these new technologies?”
Indeed, the role of the CIO
and IT has changed drastically
over the past few years, as IT
becomes a business partner. All
three CIOs agree that compa-
nies must recruit and develop IT
leaders and staff who are able to
straddle both worlds.
“As a technology-enabled
organization, our product is now
 defined by our technical pace, so
THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

the technology leaders must truly

understand the business as well
as go deep in technology,” Wells
Everything we think about is driven by the customer
Fargo’s Dillon says. “We have to experience—enabling that customer to do business the
be proactive in bringing solutions
that improve the business, be
way they want to. And so the technology we look at,
strategic in presenting and imple- and how we evaluate it, starts and ends with that lens.
menting them, and then commu-
—SCOTT DILLON, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT AND CTO, WELLS FARGO
nicate and deliver. It’s challenging,
but you have to be at the table
BIG IDEAS

from the beginning—not just

when things go wrong or you have
to discuss budget.”
Other key aspects of creating a
culture that embraces innovation
and new technologies are embrac-
ing a “test and learn” strategy
and creating a structure that fos-
ters experimentation. Both Wells
Fargo and Motorola have a head
of innovation who leads a team
that is specifically responsible for
accelerating each company’s deliv-
ery of next-generation technolo-
gies. These teams are constantly
experimenting with pilot programs
that bring these new technol-
ogies to solve problems within
the business.
Motorola is experimenting with
chatbots and machine learning to
handle help-desk tickets, and with
proactive AI that can sense issues
before they become a problem.
For example, if a device has low
memory or increases in tempera-
ture, the software can sense these
issues, alert the owner, and sched-
ule an appointment to fix the
problem. “If you push all that work
to computers, you’ll decrease
the amount of time to resolve
issues and cut costs as well,”
says Meyers.
Meyers says companies must
have a culture that allows employ-
ees not only to experiment but
also to fail. “You have to make it
safe for people to say, ‘Hey, if this
doesn’t work, we can abandon
it,’” he says. “If you’re transparent
about what’s happening and cre-
ate a safe atmosphere for exper-
imentation, over time people will
feel comfortable adopting these
new technologies.”
Wells Fargo has innovation
labs that bring the business and
IT sides together to tackle busi-
ness problems. “We put the use
case around what we’re trying to
solve for, find the emerging tech-
nologies that might fit, and start
to evaluate them in a thoughtful
way in a controlled innovation lab.
Then, where it makes sense, we
keep fleshing those out and tak-
ing them forward,” says Dillon.
Wells Fargo is experimenting with

64 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018

 using AI and robotics to create
THOUGHT LEADERSHIP
omnichannel experiences that
understand where customers are
in the pipeline and how they want
to interact with the bank. The
company is also using chatbots to
handle self-service requests, and
machine learning to detect fraudu-
lent transactions.
Of course, security is para-
mount to all three CIOs, and any
BIG IDEAS
new technologies that are rolled
out must adhere to strict secu-
rity guidelines and procedures.
“Each of our programs is engi-
neered with security top of mind,”
says Dillon.
CLOUD AS THE
BUILDING BLOCK
Because better customer experi-
ence is the most important out-
come of a successful emerging
technology strategy, a modern
infrastructure is the foundation of
any emerging technology initia-
tive. Dillon says moving core tech-
nology to the cloud is essential
for conducting successful experi-
ments in AI and IoT.
“Being in a private cloud and
standardizing your platform allows
65 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018
you to be more agile in adopting
new capabilities,” says Dillon. “You
can react faster, and your infra-
structure is elastic. If your goals
are to drive speed to market,
drive down costs, and drive the
customer experience, simplifying
your infrastructure will allow you
to use new technologies that help
achieve these goals.”
Malik also sees a cloud-centric
infrastructure with minimal cus-
tomizations as an important build-
ing block for next-generation tech-
nologies. He says switching off
legacy systems is the biggest chal-
lenge CIOs need to address—but
the payoff is worth the investment.
“As software and hardware
become decoupled, simplify-
ing the back end has helped us
reach the customer more eas-
ily,” says Malik. “We have more
time to spend on personalizing
our user interface, building out
new capabilities, and engaging
with customers.”
EMBRACE NEW TECH NOW
As exemplified by these three
technology leaders, success-
ful companies aren’t waiting to
embrace and adopt emerging
technologies. They are actively
experimenting with and imple-
menting them now. But they’re
doing so strategically and
with purpose.
“There’s a lot of overprom-
ising and underdelivering right
now,” says Dillon. “A lot of growth
needs to take place in the areas
of emerging technologies. And
part of that growth is making sure
we’re operationally ready to han-
dle it, as well as understanding the
outcomes that we’re driving for.”
Monica Mehta is a freelance writer
and a frequent contributor to Profit.
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